
THE STOBY OF 
MINNEAPOLIS 





P4US0KS 




Class i 

Book-, 

GopyrightU 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



To My Wife 




THE 
STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 



BY 
E. DUDLEY PARSONS 

INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH. IN THE WEST HIGH SCHOOL. 



"They are building still, seeing the city is built 
To music, therefore never built at all, 
And therefore built Forever."— Tennyson. 




MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA 
1913 






Copyright, 1913, by 
E. DUDLEY PARSONS 



©CI.A361970 



PREFACE. 

The author of this book disclaims having attempted to 
produce a new work on Minneapolis. It must seem to most 
people unnecessary to produce any work on Minneapolis 
after the three great subscription volumes by Williams, 
Atwater and Hudson, respectively — at least until A Half 
Century of Minneapolis has become too old for reference. 
But a subscription volume is not only too expensive for very 
general use outside of libraries, but too bulky. Although it 
possesses a distinct virtue in presenting the various phases of 
city life in separate articles — since the history of each busi- 
ness, profession, or other division can be given thus in detail 
— for the reader who seeks quickly to learn the story of the 
whole, the subscription history js hardly practicable. 

If this book shall arouse the curiosity of any one to look 
over the admirable features of these earlier histories, espe- 
cially of the one last named, the author believes that he will 
have done enough good to atone for the sin of adding to 
the pile of books in the making of which there is, alas! 
no end. 

The author has grown up in Minneapolis. He believes in 
Minneapolis and wants all the boys and girls in the city to 
believe in Minneapolis. But how shall they believe in the 
city of which they have not heard, and how shall they under- 
stand except they be guided? In the course of his teaching 
the author has tried to guide some of them, both in the 
class-room and through the city itself, to a better knowledge 
of what Minneapolis has been, what she is, geographically, 
industrially, and culturally, and whither she is tending, so 
far as we are able to judge by the activities of her citizens, 
At the same time, following the revised course of study, 
grade teachers have been aiming at the same end. If this 
book shall prove of service to them in their interpretation 
of the "city built to music, and therefore never built, and 
therefore built for ever," the author will feel deeply gratified. 

For various suggestions and criticisms the author desires 
to thank Dr. Wm. W. Folwell, Mr. Warren Upham, Secretary 
of the Minnesota State Historical Library; Mr. R. J. Russell, 



of the Minneapolis Journal; Mr. B. B. Jackson, Assistant 
Superintendent of Schools; Mr. Edgar P. Hillweg, Assistant 
Secretary of the Civic and Commerce Association; Judge 
John B. Gilfillan, Hon. Curtis H. Pettit, Dr. L. P. Foster, 
Mr. Frank G. O'Brien, and Miss Grace Watts and Miss 
Hannah Griffith, of the West High School. 

E. DUDLEY PARSONS. 
Minneapolis, September 1, 1913. 



AUTHORITIES CONSULTED. 

Besides tne extant histories mentioned in the preface, and 
various pioneers of the city, the author has freety used the 
following- material: 

Neill's History of Minnesota. 

Folwell's History of Minnesota. 

Three Centuries of Minnesota. 

Collections of the Minnesota State Historical Society. 

Mrs. Charlotte Van Cleve's Three Score Years and Ten. 

Samuel W. Pond's Two Pioneer Missionaries. 

Colonel John H. Stevens' Reminiscences. 

Frank G. O'Brien's Pioneer Sketches. 

The Newspapers — St. Paul, Pioneer; St. Anthony, Express, 
Democrat and Falls Evening' News; Minneapolis, State Atlas, 
Chronicle, Evening Mail, Citizen, Tribune and Journal. 

Miscellaneous material, including directories, souvenir books, 
special publications of commercial and other bodies; reports of 
park, school and library boards, city engineer and council 
proceedings, and other official documents; United States census 
returns. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. — Beginnings U660-184S) 1 

II.— St. Anthony (1848-1872) 22 

III.— The Village of Minneapolis (1850-1860) 44 

IV.— Becoming a City (1861-1872) 65 

V.— Boom Times (1873-1893) 85 

VI.— A City Ineei d 105 

AIL— A Great City (1893-1913) 127 

VIII.— A Good City 154 

Some Important Dates .... ..... 174 

APPENDIX 177 

INDEX 1S1 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Father of Waters .... 

Hennepin Naming the Falls 

The Government Mill 

Pond's Map ..... 

Joseph Nicollet ..... 

The Winslow House 

The First Suspension Bridge 

Indians on Bridge Street 

Looking up Fourth Street 

Another View in Village Days 

Statue of Henry W. Longfellow 

The Steamer Minneapolis 

The Stevens House .... 

The Soldier's Monument at the University 

Washington Avenue in 1869 

Looking down Fourth Street from Hennepin 

The Old City Hall 

The Milling District of Minneapolis . 
A Great Minneapolis Sawmill 

The Motor 

Map of Minneapolis .... 

The "Old Main" University Building 

Court House and City Hall 

Map of Minneapolis Park System as recommended by Prof 

Yachting on Lake Calhoun 

The Villard Parade .... 

A Great Minneapolis Machinery Plan. 

A Great Minneapolis Elevator 

A Part of the Wholesale District 

Looking up Nicollet Avenue 

Powderhorn Park Playground 

Canoes on Lake Harriet 

Folwell Hall ... 

Minneapolis Art Institute 

St. Mark's Pro-CathecTral 

Minnehaha Falls .... 



H. W 



PAGE 

Frontispiece 

4 

10 

17 

20 

36 

40 

43 

50 

51 

56 

62 

64 

67 

73 

75 

84 

87 

93 

100 

104-105 

106 

108 

110 

112 

126 

136 

142 

144 

147 

151 

153 

157 

162 

166 

173 



Cleveland 



THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS. 



CHAPTER I 

BEGINNINGS 

Radisson and Grossileurs in Minnesota — Were They 
in Minneapolis? In the year 1660 two young French- 
men, Radisson and Grossileurs, traveling in company 
with a band of Indians, traversed a large section of 
Minnesota. In the words of Warren Upham, "prob- 
ably within the area of Kanabec County, these men 
taught the Sioux and Crees, previously hostile to one 
another, peace and friendship toward the French." 
Now before the days of roads, not to speak of rail- 
roads, rivers and lakes were the great highways. The 
natural water-course from the French settlements in 
Canada to the great wilderness beyond the Mississippi 
was by way of Lake Superior, then by lake and port- 
age to our Father of Waters and thence up the Minne- 
sota. Radisson and Grossileurs, most probably took 
this course, although in the account left by Radisson 
there is no mention of the falls now called St. Anthony. 
Upham, however, explains this by supposing that on 
their way westward, the men left the Mississippi at 
some point north of the site of our city and made a 
short cut to the Minnesota. In that case, they of 
course would not see the falls but would pass our 
popular Lake Harriet. With this opinion Folwell does 
not agree, for he believes that we cannot depend 
enough on Radisson's account to draw conclusions. 



L THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

But if these explorers did follow the course suggested 
by Upham, they were almost certainly the first white 
men to visit the site of Minneapolis. 

Hennepin Discovers the Falls. Just twenty-three 
years later Father Hennepin on his way up the Missis- 
sippi was captured by the Sioux near Lake Pepin and 
taken to their village on Mille Lacs. Louis Hennepin, 
born about 1640 in the Netherlands, of French pa- 
rentage, had become a Franciscan priest possessed 
of the curiosity and courage that led so many of 
his countrymen to endure the perils of the American 
forests, and had arrived in Canada in 1665. La Salle was 
planning his memorable expedition to explore the Mis- 
sissippi country in 1682. With every such expedition it 
was customary to send a missionary ; and so Hennepin 
had found his chance. When the party after journey- 
ing by canoe from Lake Michigan had arrived at the 
mouth of the Illinois river, La Salle had dispatched 
Hennepin and two companions northward. 

These Sioux were hastening to attack the Sacs and 
Foxes and were consequently garbed and painted in a 
terrible manner. But though he scarce dared to say 
his beads, the priest succeeded in allaying the sus- 
picions of the Indians, and they did not harm him. It 
is certain that the one hundred and fifty dollars' worth 
of knives, awls, tobacco, needles and glass beads which 
Hennepin had brought with him affected more the 
child-like minds of the Sioux than his religious instruc- 
tions, although his being a "medicine man" gave him 
influence over them. However, he was forced to see 
his canoe smashed, to lose a great part of his clerical 
garb and to walk the long trail from the bluff below 
St. Paul to Mille Lacs where he arrived so sore that 
the rub-downs and steam baths which the chief gave 
him did not put him upon his feet for several days. 



BEGINNINGS 6 

Hennepin Names the Falls "St. Anthony." It was 

in August of the year 1683 that in company with his 
captors Hennepin stood looking at the falls. There 
was in the middle of the river a great slab of lime- 
stone forty feet long and live feet wide. About this 
the water swirled, then dashed over a sixteen foot 
ledge with a force -and turmoil that excited the priest's 
admiration. Raising his cross he blessed the waters 
and left them forever the name of his patron saint — 
Anthony of Padua. The party then continued down 
the river. They were soon overtaken by a brave 
Frenchman, Duluth, who had reached Mille Lacs from 
the north soon after their departure. Hearing there 
of another white man, Duluth had yearned to see him 
and had pursued him down stream at full speed. 
These men — Hennepin . and Duluth — have both left 
their names indelibly impressed upon our state. In 
Hennepin County, Hennepin Island and Hennepin 
Avenue, the former lives forever, while the latter will 
be remembered by the third largest city in the state. 

Carver's Visit. It seems strange that nearly a cen- 
tury, so far as we are able to determine, should have 
elapsed, before another white man could enjoy the 
beauty and ponder on the possibilities of these falls. It 
was, however, reserved for Jonathan Carver, a native 
of Connecticut, to follow Father Hennepin. In 1766 
Carver approached the falls through the river-gorge 
that has evoked the admiration of every traveler who 
has gazed upon its trees and flowers and ferns, and 
still charms thousands of people fresh from the 
famous scenes of the world. But Carver saw more 
than even this wonderful view as a paragraph from 
his record proves : 

"The country around here is exceedingly beautiful. 
It is not an uninterrupted plain where the eye finds no 



BEGINNINGS 

relief but composed of many gentle ascents which in 
the summer are covered with the finest verdure and 
interspersed with little groves that give a pleasing va- 
riety to the landscape." 

Carver also called attention to the large rock "forty 
feet broad and somewhat longer," on which grew a few 
"cragged hemlock and spruce trees," that divided the 
falls. That he was concerned with the future develop- 
ment of the great empire to which they have given 
such an impulse, is clearly seen in his proposal to dig 
a canal from the Alississippi to the Great Lakes and 
thus insure a free passage for ships from the plains of 
lower Canada to the Gulf of Mexico — a project that 
many enthusiasts since Carver's time have revived. 

Pike's Journey. But in 1766 there were bound- 
less beaut}- spots and millions of acres of farm 
land still to be explored eastward of the Mississippi. 
In fact, it was to take more than the raptures 
of a Hennepin and the ventures of a Carver to 
entice people into Louisiana, as the great terri- 
tory beyond that stream was called. "Sensible 
people" believed that wild beasts and Indians must 
perpetually hold sway over the almost impenetrable 
wilderness that lay along the western bank ; and that 
beyond this fringe of forest the "Great American Des- 
ert" must forbid any but the reckless adventurer to 
cross its bounds. I lence they railed at Thomas Jeffe, • 
son when he proposed to buy Louisiana for the exorbi- 
tant price of $15.000,000 — a district of which Minneap- 
olis is one of the chief trade centers, and alone is 
worth so man}- times $15,000,000 as to make that sum 
ridiculous. With true prophetic foresight Jefferson 
persisted in his foil}-, and won the mighty empire for 
our nation. 

He was not content with the buying, however; he 



() THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

needs must prove the purchase. To this end he dis- 
patched Lieutenant Zebulon Pike in 1807 to visit the 
country we now call Minnesota (but then a part of 
Michigan territory) and by making treaties with the 
Indians, to prepare rt for the settler. Pike landed on 
the island that marks the junction of the Minnesota 
river with its master stream and to which his name 
was afterward given as a memorial to his service. 
There he met Indian chiefs of whom one was "Little 
Crow," the grandfather of the "Little Crow" who led 
the Sioux in the war of 1862. He concluded with them 
a treaty providing that they cede to the United States 
a block of country "from the confluence of the Missis- 
sippi and St. Peter's (now Minnesota) rivers, nine 
miles on each side of the Mississippi for a military post 
and reservation." Thus the northern limit was Bas- 
sett's Creek, Seventh Avenue North. Later for this 
concession the United States paid the chiefs two thou- 
sand dollars. The treaty permitted the Indians to 
"pass and repass through the territory and to hunt 
therein undisturbed." For his fidelity to his govern- 
ment in this task as well as for his gallantry at an 
attack upon York in the war of 1812 — a gallantry that 
cost the United States the life of a true gentleman, an 
efficient officer and a far-seeing explorer, Pike has been 
insufficiently praised. In that opinion the contributors 
to the Minnesota Historical Society papers concur. 

Major Long's Description of the Falls. To follow 
up Pike's work, in 1819 the government sent Major 
Stephen Long, of the engineers' corps, who has left us 
a clear report of his impressions when he first looked 
up the river to the roaring falls. "The banks on both 
sides of the river are 100 feet high decorated with trees 
and shrubbery of various kinds. The post* (white or 

* The parentheses are the authors. 



BEGINNINGS 7 

burr) oak, hickory (since cleared away entirely), wal- 
nut (gone too), linden (basswood), sugar tree (hard 
maple), white birch and the American box (elder) ; 
also various evergreens such as the pine, cedar, juni- 
per, etc. (all gone but the cedar), added to the embel- 
lishment of the lovely scene. Among the shrubbery 
were the prickly ash, palm and cherry-tree, goose- 
berry, black and red raspberry, the chokecherry, grape- 
vine, etc. There are also various kinds of herbage 
and flowers among which are the wild parsley, rue, 
spikenard, etc., red and white roses, morning-glory 
and various other handsome flowers." 

Fruits and flowers that were then blooming where 
the mills and union station now stand you can find in 
the wilderness west and south of Lake Calhoun. So 
slowly does nature withdraw herself from civilization. 

Major Long found that Pike's measurement of the 
falls — sixteen and one-half feet — was correct. He also 
observed that the river above the falls was divided 
by an island five hundred yards long, its channel on the 
right being three times the width of that on the left. 

Building Fort Snelling. Meanwhile, the Indians, in 
accordance with the terms of Pike's treaty, had "passed 
and repassed" through the territory which they had 
ceded. But their hunting was as much for men as 
for game. For it must be noted that the Sioux were 
deadly enemies of the Chippewas. The latter, having 
been given guns and ammunition by the French, had 
driven the Sioux off their grounds near Mille Lacs and 
were constantly prowling about the vicinity of the falls 
and the mouth of the St. Croix to surprise their foes. 
In return the Sioux were obliged, by the rules of their 
warfare, to make forays upon the Chippewas. This 
constant battling between the tribes made the Minne- 
sota forests extremely dangerous to the whites. The 



8 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

American Fur Company had to demand protection 
for its agents. So Uncle Sam resolved to build a 
fort from which he could exert a strong influence 
toward pacifying the hostile camps. Accordingly 
Colonel Leavenworth, with a force of men, arrived 
at the mouth of the Minnesota river in the 
fall of 1819 with orders to construct and main- 
tain such a fort. During the winter the men were 
encamped on the river bottoms near the site of the 
village of Mendota. They suffered unspeakable tor- 
tures from scurvy caused by eating much salt pork, 
and many of them died. But in the spring of 1820 the 
force was moved across the river and began the 
erection of the defenses upon the bluff that commands 
both the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers. Colonel 
Snelling succeeded to the command and the new post 
took his name. While almost a hundred years has 
elapsed since then, the famous round tower with its 
port holes for the rifles, the hexagonal block house 
just beyond, and some of the old stone barracks still 
remain to remind us of the past. 

Life at Fort Snelling. Mrs. Charlotte Wisconsin 
Van Cleve, the daughter of Major Clark, in her "Three 
Score Years and Ten," gives a good picture of the life 
at the Fort during these first years. To begin with, 
the provisions had to come a great distance — 
pork, flour, whiskey, beans, candles from St. Louis, 
beef from Prairie Du Chien. This place was three 
hundred miles away and here lived the nearest whites. 
At first the mail came semi-annually, then for years 
quarterly, and not more frequently than bi-monthly, 
until the country began to be settled. This mail was 
brought from Prairie Du Chien by an Indian carrier, 
on a pony and, says the author, "there is no record 
of his unfaithfulness." At the fort a heavv guard had 



BEGINNINGS 9 

to be maintained against an attack by the Indians. 
She records the excitement caused by the arrival of 
the now protected travelers, the gathering of traders 
— halfbreeds and whites — the welcome whistle of their 
first steam-boat, the excursions over the surrounding 
country, especially to Lakes Calhoun and Harriet in 
search of flowers and fruit. All of these incidents nat- 
urally interesting to the child, the little Charlotte treas- 
ured in her mind. 

Beginnings of Agriculture. The men of Snelling 
were, however, pioneers, not only in construction, but 
also in agriculture and manufacturing. It is recorded 
that when Governor Cass, of Michigan Territory (of 
which Minnesota was a part), reached the post on a 
tour of inspection in 1820, he was fed on vegetables 
from its garden. This garden was on the plateau be- 
hind the fort, and was the first ground broken by the 
whites in Hennepin County. The surprise of the gov- 
ernor upon receiving the fruits of civilization in this 
barbarous country was very great. The soldier-, so 
lately afflicted by the terrible salt pork, were relieved 
to be able to change their diet. What a wonderful 
thing it would be for them all could they visit the 
public market of Minneapolis on any morning from 
April to November and see what tons of herbs and 
roots and fruits are purchased by grocers of farmers 
far and wide ! 

The First Lumber Mill. The great trees on the 
banks of the river suggested the means of getting 
lumber. , In 1822 a mill was erected on the site of the 
present Pillsbury Washburn flour mill A. This mill 
for years furnished all the material, not only for the 
government buildings on the reservation but for the 
simple houses of the pioneers who thought seriously of 
settling in the wilderness. 



10 



THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 



The First Flour Mill. The manufacture of lumber 
suggested that of flour, hence a second structure was 
built and equipped on an extended foundation of the 



^Rrfgfi 


^^M^ : ll 




1 1 1 1 iiPl^fpKJI 




rin'* '.LI ■ I i 

nan rllrH 




i 







first. Mrs. Van Cleve mentions the order that was 
sent to St. Louis, the great outfitting point of the time, 
for the necessarv equipment. It was as follows : 



BEGINNINGS 11 

One pair buhr mill-stones $250.11 

337 pounds plaster of paris 30.22 

2 dozen sickles (for reaping wheat) 4.18 



$284.51 
A far reach from this sum to the value of today's 
flour mill machinery ! Is it not significant that the 
twin industries — flour and lumber manufacturing — 
destined to rule the northwest from Minneapolis 
should have been born together in this government 
mill? The miller's family, and the guard, always on 
the lookout, were thus the first white persons to dwell 
inside the limits of Minneapolis, if we except the sol- 
dier, afterwards the Hon. Joseph Brown, who squatted 
on the creek that we call Minnehaha. In this way 
did the United States government blaze the path for 
the mighty works which have since come into being 
and of which every citizen of Minneapolis and its 
tributary territory is a direct beneficiary. 

Helping the Indians to Farm. The government 
tried to do as much for the Indians as for the whites. 
In 1829 an order to establish a farm on which the Sioux 
could be taught the rudiments of agriculture, was re- 
ceived at the fort, and accordingly some acres on the 
east shore of Lake Calhoun were put in charge of 
Philander Prescott who, having married an Indian wo- 
man, had an unusual understanding of her people. 
His settlement was called Eatonville after John H. 
Eaton, Secretary of War. The settlement persisted 
for several years, despite the difficulty of teaching 
settled farming to those whose estate measured hun- 
dreds of miles in extent and produced great quantities 
of game and fish for the expenditure of honest exertion. 
But today the dwellers in the stately mansions erected 
on that old cornfield know Eatonville onlv as a name. 



12 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

The Indians Leave Calhoun. In 1839, however, the 
Sioux village at Calhoun was suddenly thrown into 
consternation on account of the murder of Red Bird's 
nephew by some skulking Chippewas, on the southeast 
shores of Lake Harriet. Immediately runners were 
sent out to alarm the allied bands, and the next day the 
Sioux took ninety Chippewa scalps in a terrific battle 
near the site of Anoka. Lpon the return of the victors 
there was of course a great triumphal dance and feast 
at Lake Calhoun ; but the band dared not stay so 
close to their dreaded foe. so they moved south of 
the Minnesota river. Hence the farm returned to 
nature. The government appointed first. Gideon 
Pond, and then Peter Quinn to conduct a farm in 
Bloomington township for the benefit of those Indians. 
It is enough to say that since the Indians believed in 
owning things in common, those among them who did 
learn the secret of agriculture were so preyed upon 
by their relatives that they often became discouraged, 
and abandoned further efforts to "'get ahead" by till- 
ing the soil. 

Coming of the Ponds. Let us now review the work 
of the early missionaries who located in the Calhoun- 
Harriet district. In 1833 Samuel W. Pond left his 
home in Connecticut, zealous to better the lives of the 
Indians. Arriving at Galena. Illinois, then a Chicago, 
a great center for all immigrants to the new west, 
he wrote to his brother : 

"'There is a bodv of Indians located near here. 
From them we could learn the language which is 
spoken bv a vast number of Indians scattered over a 
large extent of territory from the Mississippi to the 
Pacific. * * It is found by experience that if once 
the Indians are in a position to obtain spirits there is 
but little prospect of doing them good. The main 



BEGINNINGS 13 

body of Indians are not now in that condition but ere 
long- they will be. Then we shall be too late." 

To this message Gideon responded by giving him- 
self to the cause with all of his money — three hun- 
dred dollars. He traveled to Galena, where meanwhile 
his older brother had lain sick so long that he had 
spent all of his own money ; and then both men fitted 
themselves out for their perilous undertaking. Samuel 
had to give up his watch to buy blankets. They ar- 
rived safely at Fort Snelling, but were closely ques- 
tioned by the commandant as to their business in the 
Indian country. With some difficulty they convinced 
him that it was possible at a time when most whites 
expected to exploit the Indians for personal gain to 
find at least two vigorous young men who could think 
of human souls. So the}' were permitted to remain. 
In the government's experiments in teaching the In- 
dians to farm, Samuel Pond immediately became use- 
ful, for he was sent to help Chief Big Thunder, 
living near what is now St. Paul, do his plowing. Thus 
he was able to meet the Indians in a very natural, 
human way, and with his tact and common-sense, ever 
afterward he was a force among them. 

The Pond Cabin. It was determined that the broth- 
ers had better build their house near the Calhoun (or 
Loon) Lake band. Cloud Man. the chief, advised them 
to choose a site overlooking the lake so that they might 
hear the loons at night. Whether or not they liked 
that music they accepted his advice, and eagerly went 
to work to construct a cabin on the bluff near what we 
call Thirty-sixth Street. The bronze tablet which 
commemorates their labors is as nearly under that 
site as it was possible to place it. Every citizen of 
Minneapolis owes a pilgrimage to the spot. 

Their house was a marvel, or would be todav. First 



14 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

they carefully peeled some logs suitable for a cabin 
twelve by sixteen by eight feet high ; then they cut 
tamarack poles in the marsh directly south of the 
Minnekahda Club grounds, got them across the lake, 
and built them into their roof. A bark covering, fas- 
tened on these poles with string, a log partition to 
make a private apartment, a split board door with 
wooden hinges, a ceiling of slabs from the government 
mill, a window given by the Indian agent, Major Talia- 
ferro, boulders from the lake to form a chimney — 
these are mentioned with care in their description of 
the cabin. The cash cost was a shilling spent for the 
nails ; but the labor which the building cost was tre- 
mendous. 

How the Ponds Lived. Here the two lived for near- 
ly four years, teaching the Indians and learning from 
them, hoeing their own corn and potatoes and attend- 
ing to their housekeeping. Their food at first was 
chiefly fried pork, into the fat of which flour was 
stirred. Variety was obtained by making this gravy 
thicker or thinner according to their fancy. Some- 
times their pork was stolen by the Indians or by the 
Indians' innumerable dogs, and the missionaries went 
to bed supperless. Comfort was added to their room 
when they killed some wolves and spread the pelts 
about. But life of this kind was truly hard for Con- 
necticut farmer boys used to hearty, well-cooked meals 
and cheerful companionship. 

Mr. Samuel W. Pond, Jr., in his most interesting- 
book, "The Two Pioneer Missionaries" has given us 
the reason why this hardship was possible : 

''In order to prosecute their work successfully they 
deemed it essential that they should understand the 
language, habits, customs, hopes and fears of the In- 
dian — that thev should be able to talk like a native, 



BEGINNINGS 15 

walk like a native and as far as might be live like one, 
on Indian fare, in an Indian tent with Indians if need 
be." To accomplish this the brothers accompanied the 
Indians on their hunting trips. The elder brother is 
reported as saying : "The language was the game I 
went to hunt, and I was as eager in the pursuit of that 
as the Indians were in the pursuit of deer." The re- 
corder of their deeds further remarks : "The Pond 
brothers expected to find the Indians human beings 
with like passions as themselves, and so they found 
them." "The trouble with them was that they had 
too much human nature," once said Samuel Pond, Sr. 
Only the persistence of these men in mastering that 
difficult language kept them from despair. And that 
persistence itself was the result of a motive so deep 
that those only who have lived the unselfish life under- 
stand its attractiveness. 

Useful Work of the Ponds. Success crowned their 
efforts, for they contributed the first notes to open the 
way of other missionaries, notably Stevens, Riggs and 
Williamson, into the mysteries of Dakota — notes that 
entered into a complete dictionary of the language. 
Folwell says in his "History of Minnesota" that the 
"Ponds adapted the Roman letters to the Indian lan- 
guage so well that their alphabet has since been used 
in writing it." They were also able to make a speller, 
the first book printed in Dakota. Besides this, they 
made translations of the gospels. Later still, they 
published in Sioux a paper, the "Dakota Friend." Both 
brothers were often called upon in after years to act as 
interpreters for the government and for various trav- 
elers, for they achieved what they had at first deter- 
mined upon — "To speak like Dakotas, not like for- 
eigners." 

The Results of Missionary Labors. During this 



16 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

period they were holding services at Fort Snelling 
too, and manfully trying to make both soldiers and 
Sioux change the manner of their lives. They be- 
came clergymen and were taken under the care of 
the American Board. Samuel Pond's diary records 
the difficulty with which they approached the In- 
dian on the subject of changing his life, for he had 
not only peculiar beliefs of his own, but he had also 
to exercise a great amount of charity for the whites 
whom he met — traders trying to get the best furs for 
the least expenditure, soldiers living like him without 
the exertion that the government wanted him to put 
forth, dissolute fellows of all kinds corrupting him 
with bad language and terrible fire-water. Besides, 
the brave could not understand why a missionary, 
speaking of the brotherhood of man should not want 
to hold his property in common with his neighbors, 
after the Indian custom. Above all of these reasons 
was the undeniable fact that the time was at hand 
when the Great Father at Washington was to take 
away the plains, woods and lakes from his red children 
and give them to his white favorites. Therefore it is 
not to be wondered at that no great evangelization of 
the tribes took place. Several men, however, were 
converted and afterwards, like John Otherday, the 
great savior of the whites, proved their worth when 
massacre threatened the entire white population of 
the state. Together with the converts of other mis- 
sionaries these formed the nucleus of the fifteen Con- 
gregational, Presbyterian and Episcopal Indian 
churches of our state and South Dakota. It is for 
doing this brave work of preparation as well as for 
the invaluable aid they gave to students of Sioux 
customs, and the accurate manner in which they re- 
duced the Sioux language to writing that the Pond 



BEGINNINGS 



17 



brothers have deserved much more praise from Min- 
neapolitans and Minnesotans than the simple tablet 
in the hillside indicates. 

Pond's Picture of the Snelling-Calhoun District. 
Of great interest is Samuel Pond's description of his 



<£Vorthr 



•^^feA^^vAa, 




POND S MAP OF THE CAI.HOL N-HA RRIETT DISTRICT. 



neighborhood. In a letter to Connecticut relatives, he 
said : 

"I will suppose that you should make us a visit this 
summer. Leaving Fort Snelling and traveling north- 
west, you would cross a green and level prairie three 



18 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

miles wide where you would come to a beautiful 
stream of water — called by the Indians Little River — it 
issues out of a lake a short distance from where we 
cross it (Rice) and it falls, I think nearly a hundred 
feet. After crossing this stream and getting out from 
among the trees which grow on its banks you would 
enter upon another prairie stretching off to the north 
as far as you could see, and casting your eyes to the 
northwest you would perceive a hill which would ap- 
pear to you much higher than any other ground. As 
you drew near to the hill (the highest point of Lake- 
wood Cemetery) following an Indian footpath you 
would see white cloths fixed to the tops of poles 
They are waving over graves. The top of that hill is 
the burying-place of the Indians. The village which 
stands on the southeast side of the lake (Calhoun) 
consists of fourteen large dwelling houses (built of 
poles and bark) besides some small ones. Turning to 
the right along the east bank and ascending a hill, 
after walking about a quarter of a mile you would find 
our house on the high ground — between the woods 
and the lake." The map on page 17 accompanied this 
letter. 

Thus observing and thus recording the lives of these 
Dakotas, the Ponds lived at Calhoun until 1839 when, 
as has been stated, the revenge of Red Bird made it 
necessary for the Indians to flee from their old home 
to a position further toward the south and closer to 
their allies. Gideon Pond accompanied them and lived 
at Bloomington until his death in 1878. His grand- 
children still reside there. Samuel Pond, after some 
hard missionary labors in western Minnesota, and at 
Lake Harriet where he labored with Rev. J. D. Stevens, 
settled at Shakopee, and there he died in 1892. In the 
early period of their pastorates at these places they 



BEGINNINGS 19 

were often called upon to minister to the settlers 
around the Falls of St. Anthony. Gideon Pond occa- 
sionally preached in Colonel Stevens' house. 

Rev. J. D. Stevens at Lake Harriet. The year after 
the Ponds located at Lake Calhoun, Rev. J. D. Stevens, 
a missionary of the American Board, located at Lake 
Harriet. Visitors to that resort are attracted by the 
bronze tablet just north of the waiting station, and 
read thereon that the first school building- within the 
present limits of Minneapolis was erected on the spot 
marked by the tablet. Miss Eggleston, sister of Mr. 
Stevens, taught the Indian boys and girls who gath- 
ered in the schoolhouse, and Mr. Stevens, in addition 
to his labors among the Indians, preached to the 
Presbyterian church at Fort Snelling — a church that 
in course of time was known as the First Presbyterian 
of Minneapolis. It is interesting to consider that the 
place now enjoyed by crowds of people throughout the 
summer and surrounded by the homes of thousands 
active in a great city's daily labor, was first marked 
out for missionary effort, and that where the car line 
now runs, these missionaries cultivated their corn. 

Why We Honor Nicollet. The name of Nicollet is 
so prominent in our city that we are likely to over- 
estimate the relation that he bore to Minneapolis. 
Joseph Nicollet was an eminent astronomer and geog- 
rapher born in Savoy, France, in 1786. In 1823 he 
came to the United States and in 1836 was attracted to 
study the upper Mississippi valley. He was royally 
entertained at Mendota by Henry Sibley who said of 
him : ''Such was the enthusiasm of his nature that he 
submitted to all physical inconveniences without mur- 
muring." Not only was Nicollet a thorough student of 
his chosen subjects, but he acquainted himself with 
Indian customs and language. His "Map of the Hy- 



20 



THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 



drographical Basin of the Upper Mississippi" and 
his scientific notes illustrated by his observations in 
the state justly placed him among those who have 
contributed to the greatness of Minnesota. He gave 
his health to this cause. It is for his sacrifices and 




JOSEPH NICOLLET. 



services to the state that Minneapolis has. properly 
remembered him ; even although he had nothing di- 
rectly to do with the city. 

So for nearly two hundred years men were feeling 
their way into the great northwest through its natural 



BEGINNINGS 21 

gateway. Now we are to see how, following the paths 
that they made, came the pioneers to occupy this 
gateway, and in return for their services rendered 
to the Northwest, take toll of it to build a splendid 
city, to music and for ever. 



CHAPTER II 

ST. ANTHONY (1848-1872) 

The Anxiety to Settle on the Reservation. During 
all the years since the establishment of Fort Snelling 
many an anxious eye had been directed toward the 
land of the reservation. As early as the thirties, on the 
pretence that Pike's treaty permitted settlement. 
French Canadians entrenched themselves at Pig's 
Eye, afterward St. Paul; and whiskey-dealers flocked 
into the woods where they could corrupt soldiers and 
Indians alike. Besides, some earnest farmers desired 
to make -their way in this rich country. In 1837 the 
government made a new treaty with the Sioux by 
which the latter ceded all their lands east of the Mis- 
sissippi. Then, of course, the squatters multiplied. 
Officers at the Fort had a good opportunity to pick 
good locations ; and thev did not neglect it. Colonel 
Stambaugh, writing soon after this to Washington, 
said : 

"The land embracing the Falls of St. Anthony has 
been improved by settlement so as to secure preemp- 
tion, and is now held by Dr. Wright, Franklin Steele 
and myself (one-half section) and by Major Plympton. 
Captain Scott and Dr. Emerson (one section)." 

Nevertheless the government did not see the way 
clear to open the reservation yet ; and in 1840 ordered 
the soldiers to drive off all the settlers. This they did, 
breaking down and burning the cabins. 

In 1847 the reservation was limited to the west side 
of the river and permission was thus given to stake out 
claims on the east side. 



ST. ANTHONY 23 

The First Settlers. At once there was an immediate 
rush to procure the choicest sites for future manufac- 
turing plants. It was very apparent that the wonder- 
ful water-power which the falls were capable of pro- 
ducing would bring great values to anyone fortunate 
enough to get the vantage -ground. The land was, 
therefore, soon taken. Charles Wilson chose the 
piece opposite the falls and was the first man to file. 
Directly north of Wilson's claim William Cheever set- 
tled. Calvin Tuttle, Pierre Bottineau and Franklin 
Steele picked quarter-sections adjoining the Cheever 
plot. Steele, as sutler (storekeeper) at the fort, had 
been in a good position to explore the promised land, 
and in 1838 had even built a log-cabin, the first struc- 
ture to be erected in what was later the city of St. 
Anthony. The following year Steele and Bottineau 
employed young William Marshall, afterwards gover- 
nor of Minnesota, to survey the Town of St. Anthony, 
and Mr. Cheever, more ambitious still, platted his 
claim into the City of St. Anthony. It is significant to 
notice, now when increasing values are tempting peo- 
ple to cut their lots into as small pieces as it is possible 
to stand houses upon, that Marshall was directed 
to make the lots sixty-six by one hundred and sixty- 
five feet. Each purchaser was thus assured breathing 
space for his family — a playground for his children. 

The Founders of St. Anthony — A Fine Class. 
During the next year settlers came in on nearly 
every steamer. It was the time that people were rush- 
ing to California and to "Bleeding Kansas," to dig gold 
or to fight slavery — a time when the dwellers of the 
Atlantic slope were deeply stirred, when their old 
men were seeing visions and their young men dream- 
ing dreams. A great stream of travelers was flowing 
westward. Now many of these people were undesir- 



24 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

able citizens — those moved chiefly by the wish to 
make a living as easily and quickly as possible in the 
midst of constant excitement. It was fortunate for 
St. Anthony that California and Kansas drew this sort 
on past the falls. Those who chose the more hum- 
drum, painful labor of development, men of conserva- 
tive temper and solid character saw that "a bird in 
the hand is worth two in a bush." Moreover many 
were used to lumbering and other manufacturing and 
could not overlook the advantages to be gained by 
working at their own crafts in a new country. Nearly 
all of these men were from Maine and, as the Express 
newspaper said, ''five-sixths of the population was from 
New England, prima-facie evidence of the intelligence 
of the community." So, not only did they display 
energy and thrift, but better still, a deep sense of duty 
and sterling integrity. The solid growth of St. Anthony 
is, hence, not something to wonder at, but the only 
possible result of the labors of men and women stal- 
wart and of single mind. 

The Godfrey House. The first permanent house was 
erected by Ard Godfrey, millwright and first postmas- 
ter of the settlement, on the corner of Main Street and 
Third Avenue Southeast. Minus its "back kitchen" 
it is now to be seen in Richard Chute Park. Among 
the many interesting relics of old days, which it shel- 
ters, is the "colonial" plan on which the building was 
constructed and which the pioneers have framed. If 
all of the features there depicted are not apparent in 
the dwelling, we may well hide our smiles when we 
remember the grand part which this home played in 
the history of a great city. Like the Stevens house, 
of which we shall presently speak, it was the abiding 
place of many a traveler and prospective settler both 
before and after hotels were built and numbered amon°- 



ST. ANTHONY 25 

its guests those who were most prominent in the de- 
velopment of Minnesota at that early day. 

New Comers Intellectual. The new comers, like Is- 
rael, established in the desert their custom and their 
law. A library of two hundred volumes, a lecture- 
course given, not by famous travelers, but by various 
citizens — the lawyer, the doctor, school teacher and 
others — and a debating society were among the first 
achievements of these people. Baptist, Methodist, 
Congregational and Presbyterian churches were or- 
ganized — the last two combining in 1861 to form the 
First Congregational Church. In 1851, not content 
with the common school, they laid the foundations of 
our great university by appointing Franklin Steele, 
Isaac Atwater, J. W. North and Wm. R. Marshall on 
a board of regents. They also built and equipped a 
structure on the block bounded by Second Street, 
University Avenue, Central Avenue and First Avenue, 
at a cost of three thousand dollars. Principal Merrill, 
who opened the university, enrolled twenty-five pupils. 

A Live Newspaper. The St. Anthony Express, 
founded May, 1850, by a tailor but edited first by Isaac 
Atwater, afterwards a judge of the supreme court of 
Minnesota and later by George Bowman, gave voice 
to this fine feeling. It called upon the citizens to 
exert themselves to make St. Anthony a good place in 
which to live, it gave columns of space to the reports 
of the lectures, emphasized the temperance and church 
movements and printed a series of "Letters to Young- 
Ladies" which contained valuable advice on educa- 
tion, conduct and general tone. The paper also asked 
people to keep litter off the streets, to improve their 
lots with shrubbery and fences, and to build "in good 
taste," "back from the sidewalk." It seemed to have 
been the chief aim of the editors and owners of this 



26 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

paper to encourage their subscribers, in every possible 
way, to live properly. In one issue we read : 

"Let us place Minnesota University on a basis equal 
to that of Yale," and later on — 

"Let no one reap the benefit without being willing 
to bear the burden." This surely was a stirring news- 
paper. 

An Enterprising Village. That these idealistic 
schemes were not inconsistent with material improve- 
ment is only another proof of what America at its 
best can bring to pass. Hotels were established to 
accommodate even the most fastidious travelers who 
began to seek out this new spot; business enterprises of 
all kinds were started; the manufacture of lumber and 
flour, twins born in the government mill, was begun 
on a commercial basis — in fact hustle and grit were 
everywhere evident. To be more particular, there was 
the St. Charles,* a hotel far larger than one of our vil- 
lages of five hundred people could easily support, 
whose proprietor was so concerned to sustain his repu- 
tation that he closed his bar "in deference to those who 
love quiet and good order." This house was being 
well patronized by visitors from Vermont, New York, 
Iowa and even from Washington, D. C, and the south. 
The published arrivals in one week are enough to 
show that it could afford to be so independent. So 
many of these travelers stayed, that in 1851, the vil- 
lage had a population of six hundred — a population 
engaged in many enterprises. Said the Express : 

"Here at the falls we have doctors, mechanics, saw 
mills and public houses. Are you a farmer? We have 
room for more. Are you a merchant? Room for 
more. Are vou a clerovman? Settle down. Or a 



*This hotel was situated on Marshall Street near Sixth Ave- 
nue. 



ST. ANTHONY 27 

physician? You are wanted. Or an attorney? Wait 
awhile. There will soon be room for more. The coun- 
try is young and therefore energetic. It is moving on 
like a giant, fearlessly, bravely, bearing all with it if 
not to wealth, certainly not to starvation." 

Lumber and Flour. Lumber manufacturing was 
begun first, for in 1847 Steele had built his mill. 
In 1851 there were four mills in operation. It is note- 
worthy that the best boards were only sixteen dollars 
per thousand although the total output was but 6,000 
feet a day. But the sturdy Maineites operating in the 
woods along the Rum River became more active. 
Used to logging in their Pine Tree State they saw the 
possibilities in the great forests stretching away to the 
north. Considering the millions upon millions of feet 
that have been floated down the Mississippi in the 
last sixty years the following paragraph written in 
1853, is of great interest : 

"Daniel Stanchfield, of St. Anthony, was the first 
man who ever cut and drove pine logs out of Rum 
River. It was then supposed that the pine would last 
a winter or two ; now it is certain that the supply will 
be sufficient to meet the demand for many years." 

Soon the mills were cutting fifteen million feet a 
year, and St. Anthony was being advertised as a lum- 
ber town. It is unfortunate that the conservation 
of these first woodsmen has not been imitated by 
others. If it had been our forest might still supply 
our own demand for timber, instead of which we are 
forced to depend on Oregon and Washington for the 
most of our finest building material. 

On account of the uncertainty of agriculture in the 
new country, flour manufacturing lagged somewhat 
behind the lumber industry. When in 1851 the R. C. 
Rogers grist-mill was opened at the end of the Steele 



28 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

saw-mills, thirty-two bushels of grain was looked upon 
as a large grist. Three years later the Island Mill, 
at the lower end of Hennepin Island, 40x60, three 
stories high, began running. Its wheat came from 
Iowa by boat to St. Paul, thence by team to St. An- 
thony. Rollins, Eastman and Upton, its proprietors, 
sold their flour at from $9 to $12 per barrel, but spouted 
their bran into the river and disposed of their mid- 
dlings as "red dog" flour to the Indians. Other flour 
mills were built in St. Anthony itself within the next 
few years. 

Captain Tapper Advertises. The citizens of St. An- 
thony were not content to stay on their own side of 
the river. The beautiful country on the west side drew 
sight-seers and picnickers then as it does now. Be- 
sides, when the reservation had been still more re- 
stricted boomers began to pour into the district be- 
yond the Mississippi. In 1851 appeared this quaint 
advertisement in the Express : 

St. Anthony Ferry. 

"Capt. John Tapper is prepared to convey the travel- 
ing public across the Mississippi in his unrivaled ferry 
boat. The assiduity with which he transacts all busi- 
ness committed to his charge is sufficient to guarantee 
the public that all business entrusted to him will be 
safely and punctually attended to. 

As the classic plains of All Saints (the west side) 
are attracting the attention of the lovers of nature and 
also those desirous of speculation, he w r ould suggest 
to strangers the propriety of not leaving St. Anthony 
without visiting this world-renowned retreat. 

The captain wall always be in attendance at the 
sounding of the horn which can at all times be found 
in his boat." 



ST. ANTHONY 29 

1855 the First Suspension Bridge. Two Good 
Stories. The "classic plains" filled up so rapidly that 
the ferry soon proved inadequate; so the forerunner 
of our present steel arch bridge, a suspension bridge, 
the wonder of the citizens, was hung across the chan- 
nel. Captain Tapper was promoted to the position 
of toll-keeper, and for years was the most familiar 
figure in the two communities. One of his remarks 
deserves to live forever as a motto for the northwest. 
General Andrews, state forester, says that when he 
arrived in St. Anthony, bent on seeing the country 
beyond the bridge, he paid his five cents and was al- 
lowed to pass. When he wanted to return the captain 
demanded toll again. 

"But I paid once," said the general ; ''do I have to 
pay to go back?" 

"Young man," replied Tapper, "there is no going 
back in this country." 

Looking upon the statue of the old toll-keeper in the 
Public Library, one is quite convinced of the truth of 
the story. 

That, indeed, was the spirit of the founders. An- 
other more humorous illustration of it is the repartee 
between the editors of the Express and the Home 
Journal, a New England magazine. The latter with 
great glee copied the following advertisement from 
the Express : 

"All persons who have buried bodies on my property 
in the rear of the village are hereby directed to take 
the bodies up immediately. Calvin Tuttle." 

The Journal's comment upon this notice was that 
"much may be inferred from this advertisement of the 
way of life in those remote regions." The Express, 
while admitting that its community ought to have a 



30 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

cemetery, thought it not without merit that the people 
were too busy living to plan for their funerals. 

Steamers On the Upper Mississippi. Not only were 
they interested in their immediate neighborhood; they 
began to plan better means of communication with 
the dwellers of the upper Mississippi valley where the 
ax and spade and plow were reducing the wilderness to 
comfortable villages and profitable farms. In 1856, 
therefore, the Governor Ramsey, a small but com- 
fortable steamer built in the east*, arrived at St. An- 
thony and was soon being advertised : 

"The Governor Ramsey, Capt. Rollins, now makes 
regular trips between St. Anthony and Sauk Rapids 
twice a week. Although the Governor Ramsey has 
not the same spacious accommodations as are found on 
the larger boats of the lower Mississippi yet travelers 
will receive every attention which their comfort de- 
mands and will find this a cheerful trip. A recent 
passage down was performed in six hours." 

The mere fact that this boat could continue to oper- 
ate until the requirements of the war took her to the 
south, suggests the rapid development of the great 
country to the northward. But besides this steamer, 
the St. Cloud, Enterprise, North Star and H. M. Rice, 
were actively engaged in this up-river trade. 

Improvement In Stage Service. Then, too, a stage 
route to Lake Superior passing through the Taylor's 
Falls country brought business to the merchants 
about St. Anthony Falls. Added to these advantages, 
there were improvements in the stage service from 
the south, especially from St. Paul. Again, the in- 
crease of population along - the Minnesota River which 

* The written accounts of this steamer state that she was 
built in the east. Dr. L. P. Foster, however, declares that she 
was constructed on lower Nicollet Island. 



ST. ANTHONY 31 

efficient captains served with goods from St. Anthony 
and her fast growing sister city on the opposite 
bank expanded this business. The Express said that 
"St. Anthony must in time become the mart of trade" 
for all this western country. 

The Plan of St. Anthony. The business enter- 
prises, needed to supply the increasing popula- 
tion, were scattered over a large extent of territory 
before the west side began to share in the prosperity. 
To begin with there was St. Anthony City, commonly 
called "Cheevertown" or "lower town." It had been 
platted with a frontage on the river of seven-eighths 
of a mile and a width of six blocks. The first street 
parallel to the river was named Water; the others were 
numbered from First to Fifth. Crossing these at right 
angles were Oak, Walnut. Harvard, Union, Church, 
State, Pleasant and Prospect — names familiar enough 
to students of the University. 

Near the site of the University "Old Main" was 
the famous "Cheever Tower," a timber structure bear- 
ing the legend, "Pay your dime and climb." From this 
tower passengers on the stage en route from St. Paul 
to St. Anthony had a glorious view of the Mississippi 
River and of the plains beyond while the horses were 
drinking at the great trough and the driver was per- 
haps drinking in the tavern that marked the center 
of "Cheevertown." 

North of the city was the Town of St. Anthony 
fronting on the river one mile and extending eastward 
for seven blocks. The first street parallel to the river 
was called Main, the others were numbered from First 
to Seventh. At right angles to these were Birch, Wil- 
low, Aspen, Spring, Maple, Walnut, Spruce, Cedar, 
Pine, Mill, Bay, Oak and Linden — names since 
changed for numbers north and south of Central Ave- 



0- THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

nue* North of the town again was Steele and Rus- 
set's Addition to the Town of St. Anthony extending 
for three hundred and eighty-five feet on the river and 
containing but one street, Dacotah. Main Street was 
an extension of the old territorial road. For this rea- 
son as well as because it was nearest to the river it 
became the chief thoroughfare, and business traveled 
northward along Main Street as in later years it has 
gone westward on Nicollet. At first the people boasted 
of the trade center on lower Main and Water 
streets, where the opening of the ferry and bridge 
boomed the district which these enterprises immedi- 
ately served ; then the steamboat landing near what is 
now the corner of Main and 4th Avenue northeast drew 
stores to its neighborhood ; and finally, after the west 
side had become important, the extension of Bridge 
Street called Central Avenue received back its pOAver. 
Since that time business on the east side has been al- 
most entirely confined to this avenue. The struggles 
of these various centers to hold the ascendancy, es- 
pecially the contest between "upper" and "lower" 
town, which really included Third Avenue Southeast, 
were natural consequences of an era of speculation. 

The Business Districts. Some idea of St. Anthony's 
business districts is obtained from Frank O'Brien's 
Pioneer Sketches. The author says that as one crossed 
the suspension bridge, he saw to the left Blakeman 
and Greenleaf's jewelry store, next Wheeler's grocery, 
to the right Crawford's drug store, then Peter O'Con- 
nor's dry-goods emporium ; opposite these was Cen- 
tral Hall with Nash's hardware and Managan's fruit 
shanty on the corner, Across Second Street, Lippin- 
cott, blacksmith and village marshal, held sway. Be- 
tween Second and University was the school house 

* Central Avenue was Bay Street. 



ST. ANTHONY 33 

wherein Mrs. Butterfield ruled a crowd of reckless 
youngsters ; between University and Fourth was Dr. 
S. PL Chute's house, and on the corner of Central and 
Sixth, lived Reverend Charles Seccomb, pastor of the 
Congregational Church. Along the river north of 
this avenue were the mills. At the steamboat land- 
ing were several stores and a bank, a building now used 
by the Nelson-Tenney Paper Company. A block 
further south, at Third avenue, was the Farmers' Ex- 
change book store established in 1850 and soon become 
a famous resort for readers. Here was a circulating 
library and here might be purchased the New York 
Ledger and Tribune, the Boston Advertiser, and the 
then popular magazines. 

Doing It "Up Brown." The energy with which 
these merchants and mechanics were working is rep- 
resented as well in this advertisement as by any other 
evidence : 

"L. T. Van Nest would respectfully inform the 
citizens of St. Anthony that he has established him- 
self on Front Street (Main Street) near the bridge, 
where he is prepared to do their blacksmithing up 
brown." 

This kind of preparation so made itself felt that 
wooden buildings began to be replaced by what were 
at that time magnificent brick blocks, some of which 
are still in use. The desire to do things "up brown" 
coupled with the chance to do it brought St. Anthony 
the prosperity that it deserved. The Express was 
able to remark : 

"Favorable changes are apparent in our schools, in 
our churches, lyceums, debates, lectures, in short ev- 
erything pertaining to physical and mental develop- 
ment. Slowly but steadily a cosmopolitan influence 
and spirit is gaining ground." 



34 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

The fact that seventy-five dwellings were erected 
in one year is another witness to the truth of this state- 
ment. This spirit was expressed in a complimentary 
dinner tendered to Franklin Steele, senior member of 
the St. Anthony Mill Company, for his work in behalf 
of the growing community. 

Why St. Anthony Succeeded. It must always be 
borne in mind that this prosperity was the result of 
determination, foresight, and a high sense of duty. 
These pioneers were cheered in the wilderness, not 
because they could strike the rock of its vast resources 
and be abundantly enriched, not because they could 
find their daily bread as they walked abroad ; but rather 
because their consistent faith in the country made 
them constant in effort and able to bear the burdens 
which their lot imposed upon them. That these bur- 
dens were heavy, there is ample proof. The people 
were mostly poor. To be sure a few had brought some 
money with them ; but there were none who could 
afford to miss an opportunity to work. It must also 
be remembered that the river was the life of the com- 
munity. As one writer says, "the year was divided 
into two parts marked by the time when the river 
closed and when the ice went out." During the win- 
ter there was likely to be a shortage of provisions. 
One woman, for instance, remembers making pie with 
cracker-crumbs moistened with tartaric acid, as a sub- 
stitute for apples. She further says that milk during 
her first winter, 1849-50, was fifty cents a quart. To 
quote again — "at Thanksgiving time, turkey and goose 
there were none and chicken-pie existed only in the 
visions of past Thanksgivings. Pumpkins abounded, 
but alack ! there were neither eggs nor milk to furnish 
forth the pies." People accustomed to comfortable 
houses "back east" had to live in shacks until more 



ST. ANTHONY 35 

suitable dwellings could be provided for them. But 
they had come out west to make their way and were 
not to be daunted by inconvenience and hardship. 

A Beautiful Country. The country itself was full 
of interest and inspiration. There was the river, its 
scenery yet unmarred by railroad yards, coal-piles and 
refuse. Then, "to the left," writes one of the first 
settlers, "stretched the broad, rolling prairie, now cov- 
ered by the city but then fair with unbroken turf and 
scattered groves. Abreast of Nicollet Island, which 
lay like a gleaming emerald, the waters of the river 
began to flash and ripple in more and more swelling 
waves till when Hennepin, another gem of an island, 
divided its current, it flung itself over the precipice 
to form, not a sublime cataract, but a broad and beauti- 
ful waterfall, characteristically named by the Indians 
'Minnerara' (pronounced 'Minnehaha') 'the smiling 
water.' On the right lay the village of St. Anthony." 
Beyond those beautiful groves, one of which it, now 
named Loring Park, were the wild strawberry grounds 
where the little Charlotte Van Cleve used to take her 
outings and where wagon loads of St. Anthony people 
went picnicking, and still further was the great roman- 
tic west of dark woods supposedly full of wild animals 
and Indians. To the north, far beyond the reach of 
the little steamers, were mighty pines, then untouched, 
now a sad memory of waste and theft although they 
have figured in the prosperity of many homes. This 
was indeed a region to call forth the best that a man 
could do — a country worth sacrificing for. 

St. Anthony a Popular Summer Resort. It was no 
wonder that St. Anthony became a summer resort. 
Besides people who had known Fort Snelling for 
years, a host of sightseers began to visit the village. 
These were for the most part southerners glad to 



36 



THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 



lind so cool and delightful a place in which to spend 
the hot seasons. There were good accommodations, 
too, on the river steamboats which unloaded their pas- 
sengers in "lower town" below the falls. The captains 
were gentlemen, the scenery along the river, as now, 
most superb. And then there was the wonderful 
country to fish and hunt and play in. All of these 
things kept the stream of people flowing northward 
as fast as the Mississippi could flow southward. 




THE WINSLOW HOUSE 



The Winslow House. Southern society found its 
home, after 1856, at the Winslow House. This stood 
on the hill afterward crowned by the Exposition build- 
ing, that is now used by the International Stock Food 
Company. The hotel contained four stories and a 
basement. The Minneapolis Journal in 1879 published 
this interesting note on the Winslow House : 

"St. Anthony was high in favor in the south as a 
resort during the summer months, and hundreds of 
aristocratic people took up their residence in this 



ST. ANTHONY 37 

fine hotel, which at that time afforded rare attractions, 
chief among which was its magnificent prospect of 
river, falls, and prairie." 

The furniture was very beautiful and the table ser- 
vice aimed to please those who are most difficult to 
please — pleasure-seekers. In 1858 a hundred and fifty 
guests were housed in this hotel and in the seasons of 
'59 and '60 three hundred, according to this same ac- 
count. Mr. O'Brien is even more emphatic for he 
says that the building was crowded from cellar to 
attic. The Avar put an end to all of this, and the 
Winslow shut its doors. The building*, however, 
afterward became the home of Macalester College and 
then a hospital before it finally gave up its life. The 
Winslow House is treasured in the memory of every 
old settler as are treasured the bright times of child- 
hood days. 

How the People Enjoyed Themselves — School. 
This chapter would hardly be complete without some 
account of the pleasures enjoyed by St. Anthony 
people. It may seem strange to this generation that 
good times were possible without the theatre in win- 
ter and specialized sports at all seasons of the year; 
but these New Englanders had a great deal of fun. 
There were the schools, one near the corner of Fourth 
Avenue and Sixth Street Northeast, called the "White," 
where Governor Horace Austin taught one term, 
and one on University Avenue, near Second Avenue 
Southeast, distinguished by the name "Black."" Of 
this schoolhouse Mr. O'Brien says: "A single en- 
trance led to a lobby, into the walls of which were 
driven nails for the hats, caps, and wraps of the pupils. 

* An earlier school was taught by a Miss Backus in a little 
building- on Marshall Street near the present Turner Hall 
between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. The Butterfield school 
referred to on p — was a private institution. 



38 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

An entrance for girls and one for boys led into the 
school room. Here a hundred and fifty pupils were 
instructed by one teacher whose qualification for his 
office, included a hard biceps muscle. Judge John B. 
Gilfillan proved his worth in this school. The A, B, C 
class, first, second, and third reader classes recited 
before recess in the morning; afterwards various 
classes in geography. Then came the nooning with 
the swapping of pencils and knives amid the eating 
of lunch. After that meal the room was a disorderly 
sight with odds and ends of lunch in various places. In 
the second session for the day came the penmanship 
and arithmetic, a free and easy recess, then a spell- 
down out of McGuffey's famous book." During the day 
the water pail in the corner was a constant attraction. 
In such a school it was impossible that pupils could 
have learned as much as they do under present condi- 
tions; but they enjoyed a simple comradeship that 
helped make, not only lasting friendships, but thought- 
ful men and women. 

Evening Entertainments. There were several kinds 
of evening entertainments. Singing-schools were pop- 
ular, as many as three being in operation at one time. 
The literary societies have been referred to. This an- 
nouncement is informing: 

'The St. Anthony Lyceum will meet at the school- 
house (lower town) at 6V 2 P. M. 

"Question — Resolved that a false system of religion 
is preferable to atheism. T. Elwell, Secretary." 

A great temperance reform was sweeping over the 
northern part of the United States at this. time. In 
common with other towns St. Anthony had its Band of 
Hope, organized for "self improvement and temper- 
ance," its Sons of Temperance, and other societies 
similarly determined. Besides these organizations, 



ST. ANTHONY 39 

there were several dancing-clubs. There seems to 
have been some dispute as to which one was the most 
aristocratic. In the Falls Evening News it was dis- 
tinctly set forth by one indignant member that the 
"Silver Greys" met regularly at the St. Charles, the 
"Posies" at the Winslow, the "Democracy" at Hawes 
Hall, and Prof. Hazzar's select class at Stanchfield's 
Hall. It can easily be inferred from this division 
wherein lay the cause for dispute. Mr. O'Brien men- 
tions a house on Second Street Northeast as a famous 
resort for musicians and the jewelry store as a gather- 
ing place of such notables as Wm. Marshall, Isaac 
Atwater, and Charles Hoag; and designates it as a 
place where the egg was laid that afterward hatched 
the name of our city. At such gatherings, social and 
educational, the people of the village lightened their 
toil with honest recreation, and at the same time 
strove to keep their community up to the standard of 
intellectual vigor that old New England had raised for 
them. 

Show Places and Picnic Grounds. In the summer- 
time Nicollet Island was the favorite place — the haunt 
of young and old. A buck was killed there in 1856. 
Some verses by Dr. U. D. Thomas give a good idea 
of the sentiment aroused by this "emerald lying on 
the bosom of the great river." 

"Fanny Ellis, you remember 

That unclouded afternoon 
When the groves of Nicollet Island 

Wore the liveries of June. 
And we walked beneath the shadows 

While the bright-winged moments sped, 
And our thoughts were bright and cloudless 

As the bright sky overhead." 

Here just before its departure for the front the First 
Minnesota Regiment was regally fed by the citizens 



ST. ANTHONY 41 

of both east and west sides. It was the natural rallying 
ground. The Chalybeate Spring just below the place 
where now the Pillsbury A Mill stands, was a favorite 
with the guests of the Winslow. Sandy Lake (now 
in Columbia Park) three miles to the north, attracted 
the duck-hunters; and the western lakes, even includ- 
ing Minnetonka, called the fishermen. With this great 
out-of-doors always at hand to soothe away their cares, 
the fathers of our city planned and toiled in peace of 
mind and with undimmed vision pressed forward to- 
ward the future. 

In fact the country was so wonderful that exag- 
geration of its features became easy, especially for the 
humorist. One of these in a published letter described 
a cave which he declared he had discovered extending 
under a great part of St. Anthony, and possessing as 
many attractions as the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. 
For several columns he detailed these marvels and 
dwelt upon the practical advantages of the cave, in a 
perfectly serious manner. He had the satisfaction of 
deceiving several editors and almost the whole popu- 
lation before his hoax was discovered. 

Some Changes in Government. St. Anthony held 
to the village form of government until 1855 when 
Cheever's dream of a city was realized. April 13th of 
that year the first city council, consisting of two alder- 
men from each of four wards, convened. H. T. Welles 
was the first mayor. This city government lasted 
until the merger of St. Anthony with Minneapolis in 
1872. 

The township of St. Anthony underwent several 
changes but after the organization of Minnesota Ter- 
ritory in 1849 it formed part of Ramsey County. Then 
in 1856 the boundaries of Hennepin County were ex- 
tended across the river to the line that marks the 



42 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

eastern boundary of Minneapolis. This line was also 
the eastern boundary of St. Anthony Township after 
1861. The northern boundary was the line now fol- 
lowed by Forty-Second Avenue Northeast. The City 
of Minneapolis includes all of this township excepting 
one and three-quarters sections on the northeast. 

The school districts were consolidated by a special 
legislative act in 1860; and the St. Anthony School 
Board organized. This body administered education- 
al affairs for the east side of the river until after the 
union of St. Anthony with Minneapolis ; then, in 1878, 
it closed its labors. 

A Responsible Town. Such, then, was St. Anthony 
in the years before the war. The log cabin of Frank- 
lin Steele had been multiplied into street upon street 
of comfortable houses, his mill had become an industry 
and nearly every want of man was satisfied on the spot. 
Churches, schools, a university, proud of its new $50,- 
000 main building, leaders of understanding and vision, 
citizens of sterling worth — these working in harmony 
laid down the foundations of a city. 

The opportunity to procure valuable claims on the 
west side of the river had tempted many of her best 
men to leave St. Anthony by 1855. After that time 
when cheaper lots and more liberal privileges were 
being offered in the newer place, Minneapolis forged 
ahead. It was fitting that St. Anthony should com- 
plete its sacrifice by giving up its life. It found it 
again in the larger life of a metropolis whose name has 
been sounded around the world. 



CHAPTER 111 

THE VILLAGE OF MINNEAPOLIS (1850-1861) 

The Stevens House. The visitor to Minnehaha 
Park is shown the "Old Stevens House," the first 
family dwelling erected on the west side of the river. 
In 1897 the school children of Minneapolis, in joyous 
procession, hauled it to its present location from Six- 
teenth avenue and Fourth street. To this corner it 
had been moved some years before from its first site — 
where the Union Station now stands. 

The owner and builder of this house, Col. John H. 
Stevens, was among the crowd of sight-seers who 
came to St. Anthony during the season of 1849. He 
arrived on April 27th and at once made a prospecting 
trip to Coon Creek, returning on the west side of the 
river. Then he formed the acquaintance of Franklin 
Steele who, we have seen, was the pioneer on the east 
side, and who w T as anxious to procure the choice of 
claims beyond the river so soon as the government 
should further limit the reservation. Stevens not only 
became Steele's partner in a grocery store in St. An- 
thony, but also his agent to hold this coveted land. 
He filed on a claim directly opposite the Steele town- 
site in St. Anthony, extending from what is Second 
Avenue South to- Bassett's Creek and from the river 
as far west as Seventh Street. We have already seen 
that the manufacture of flour and lumber in the old 
government mill prophesied the future greatness of the 
city as a flour and lumber center. Now we have the 
coincidence of these two — the first to plat St. Anthony 
and the first to plat Minneapolis — forming a partner- 



THE VILLAGE OF MINNEAPOLIS 45 

ship, making, as it were, a prophecy of the great part- 
nership into which the cities were to enter. 

Two Fierce Enemies. Stevens erected this house 
which became immediately the center of activity. The 
wildness of the place is best illustrated by the follow- 
ing story told by Stevens in an address delivered in 
1856: 

"The first carpenter that worked here was Chas. 
Mosseau of Lake Calhoun. He built my house in 
*1849 and was assisted by Capt. John Tapper. At that 
time this place was troubled by two very destructive 
visitors, and Captain Tapper, in order to escape from 
one, threw himself into the jaws of the other. I refer 
to mosquitoes and wolves. During a sultry night in 
July the captain found it impossible to sleep in the 
house, for the mosquitoes were unusually pressing with 
their bills just then ; so he took up his bed and walked 
up the hill back of the house, planted himself on the 
prairie and was soon lost in sleep. I Fe had not en- 
joyed the luxury long before he was awakened by a 
peculiar feeling, something like one person's breathing 
into another's face. Opening his eyes, he beheld a 
score of wolves around him ; one had ventured so close 
to his face that the hot breath had awakened him. 
The captain gave a yell, as lie alone can give, and a 
bound at the same time for the house followed by 
the wolves, but as usual he came out victorious and 
succeeded in saving himself from destruction by leg 
bail, probably much to the gratification of the mos- 
quitoes and the sorrow of the wolves." 

A Social Centre. In his Reminiscences Stevens ob- 
serves that in this house the new county of Hennepin 

* This is probably a mistake of Stevens, for according- to 
some accounts there was no settlement west of the river 
before 1850. 



46 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

was organized (1851) and its first officers elected. 
Later the Hennepin County Agricultural Society, 
which Stevens nurtured throughout his life and there- 
by performed a most beneficial service to the state, 
was started under this roof. Then a singing school 
and a common school district came into being by 
his initiative. Ministers, including Gideon Pond, 
held services and solemnized marriages, and justices 
conducted court within its walls ; while Indians made 
themselves at home both without and within the house. 
Naturally, too, the house became a resort for politi- 
cians to conceive many a plan for their own advance- 
ment as well as for the progress of the settlement. We 
may say indeed that the Stevens house was the first 
social center in the city. 

The year following his arrival Stevens' wife came 
west to grace the many occasions to which we have re- 
ferred. It is significant that she brought a piano with 
her. 

The St. Anthony Claim Protective Association. Ex- 
citement prevailed over the opportunities offered in 
this great wooded plain, and by the mighty water- 
power which every explorer had coveted. The St. 
Anthony people were determined that no St. Paulites 
should file on claims so they formed a claim protective 
association, the constitution of which, published in 
the Express, declared that a member should "have 
the privilege of making one claim not exceeding 160 
acres to be protected by this association. While there 
was nothing said in the constitution about the means 
of "protection," quiet hints were passed on to" the peo- 
ple from St. Paul and guns were passed around among 
the members. The result was that long before an 
order from Washington "opened" the reservation, the 
members were in practical possession of it — a fact to 



THE VILLAGE OF MINNEAPOLIS 47 

be explained by the rough and ready way of the fron- 
tier. Although there had been some rivalry between 
St. Anthony and St. Paul this was the real beginning 
of ill feeling between the two places. 

The claims adjoining the Stevens holding were soon 
settled and the country around about resounded with 
the noises of industry. Names that properly have been 
perpetuated in street and park and water-way were 
making themselves felt in the hewing out of the settle- 
ment from the scattered groves that varied the plain. 
To the south of Stevens was Edward Murphy, Dr. A. 
E. Ames, Charles Russell and Anson Northrup, later 
Judge Atwater and Doctor Elliott, to the southwest 
the "Harmon Place," to the west the Stinsons and 
Charles Hoag, to the north Joel B. Bassett. Beyond 
this circle of city-makers were farmers hoping to de- 
rive much benefit from their proximity to a market — 
Layman, the Blaisdells, the Russells (on the site of 
whose house stands the West High School) and 
Christmas who gave his name to an avenue now called 
Twentieth North, and to a lake near Minnetonka. 
Within five years all of the available land for many 
miles around had been claimed and the community 
thus built up had become widely known. 

Platting the Claims. It was seen, however, by a 
few that the land could not be kept for agricultural 
purposes. Such a writer in Atwater's History of 
Hennepin County says : 

''The pouring thunders of the mighty cataract had 
resounded throughout the nation and it was known to 
everyone that this tremendous force must be utilized 
to turn the millstones and spindles of one of the 
great manufacturing centers of the world." 

Franklin Steele had employed Ard Godfrey to cut 
the timber on lower Nicollet Island and to make with 



48 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

it a dam across the east channel of the river. As soon 
now as capital could be found the further harnessing 
of the falls was begun and the preeminence of Minne- 
apolis as a milling center assured. 

Hence the owners of claims nearest to the source of 
power began to cut them up into lots to accommodate 
the business pressing to be transacted. In 1854 Stevens 
platted his farm into large lots (66 by 150) and in or- 
der to encourage building, gave many of them away — 
so many that Steele had to ask him to stop. The first 
lot he gave to a man named Lewis, who erected a store 
upon it — a store that made way for a market-house 
which in turn stepped aside for Northrup, King and 
Company's seed store. Bridge Street (Bridge Square) 
soon presented a busy appearance. 

Boundaries of the Town — Bridge Street. In his ac- 
count of the early settlement of the city Judge Atwater 
says : 

''The survey of the original town of Minneapolis 
was made by Wm. R. Marshall in 1854 but the 
plat was not recorded until the following year. It 
comprised the land lying between the Mississippi 
River from Bassett's Creek to Tenth Avenue South 
and from the river to Seventh Street. The lots were 
sixty-six feet front by one hundred and sixty-five 
deep, ten to a block, each block containing two and 
one-half acres except in the vicinity of the falls where 
some blocks contained twelve and fourteen lots. 
Washington and Hennepin Avenues were laid out one 
hundred feet wide and the streets eighty feet." 

"As one crossed the bridge upon the left close to the 
river bank was the white story-and-half house of 
Colonel Stevens. On the right as one rose the short 
hill from the bridge was a one-story building bristling 
all over its front with signs signifying that Snyder and 



THE VILLAGE OF MINNEAPOLIS 49 

McFarlane did a banking business. A few low build- 
ings fronted on Nicollet Street in one of which C. H. 
Pettit conducted a bank and in another H. T. Welles 
had his headquarters. Where the Centre Block (re- 
cently condemned for the Gateway Park) and the 
(old) city hall stands was a quagmire. On the site of 
Temple Court was a one-story building and north of 
it on Washington Avenue the Free Will Baptist 
Church." 

Everyone did not believe that so much space would 
be needed in which "to turn the spindles" for in the 
Tribune of March 11, 1911, an old settler de- 
clares that "it was foreign to the minds of Bridge 
and First Street merchants that business would ever 
be extended as far out as Washington Avenue and 
never did they dream that the site of the Milwaukee 
railroad station and tracks would be used for such 
a purpose on so unsightly a marsh. Nor did they 
give a passing thought that the city hall (old site) or 
what is known as 'Center Block' would ever be utilized 
for mercantile purposes. Even as late as 1870 a 
thought was hardly given to Nicollet Avenue as a busi- 
ness street. Hennepin Avenue made no claim to being 
a business street, but predicted that it would be the 
fashionable residence portion of the city." 

The most casual observer can still pick out some 
of these old structures fronting on lower Hennepin 
Avenue and on Bridge Square even though they have 
sought to hide their identity behind modern "fronts." 

Rivals of Bridge Street. It is interesting to learn, 
however, that Bridge Street, bustling though it looked, 
was not the undisputed center of affairs. Helen Street 
(Second Avenue South) was for some years a rather 
successful rival. The building now known as the St. 
Tames Hotel was then a "big- brick block" that threat- 



50 



THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 



ened to attract all business to its corner. It was near 
this corner on Washington Avenue that Dr. Kirby 
Spencer owned the lots which, later presented to the 



■ft «■' r ' 


^ It* 






iff : / 





Minneapolis Atheneum, have entered so largely into 
the prosperity of our Public Library. Another nucleus 
was the neighborhood of Washington and Eighth Ave- 
nues South which was so fortunate as to draw the post 



THE VILLAGE OF MINNEAPOLIS 



51 



office, the land office and finally the courthouse. In 
the block between Fourth and Fifth Streets on Eighth 
Avenue South are two dingy grey limestone buildings. 




s 3 






They are the old courthouse and jail, abandoned by 
the County of Hennepin when its present quarters 
were opened. Between these two settlements was 
the Cataract Hotel and later the Bushnell House which 



52 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

strove to outshine the Nicollet, the climax of archi- 
tecture for the Bridge Street district. We hear of a 
school conducted at this early time on the corner of 
Eighth avenue and Second Street by a Miss Mary Scho- 
field and another on Second Avenue and Washington 
by Miss Nancy Miller. Two years later Miss Hart- 
well (Mrs. J. D. Taylor) opened a school at Hennepin 
and Fourth Street. Whether these schools entered into 
it or not there was a healthy rivalry between "upper" 
and "lower" towns — a rivalry that doubtless helped 
much to spur its partisans on toward city-building. 
• Charles Hoag Names the Village. The name of a 
place is so important that the manner in which 
our city was christened ought to be known to every- 
one. In the beginning, not to be outdone by 
St. Paul and St. Anthony, the citizens on the west 
side of the river called their settlement "All Saints," 
and so it was known to travelers. Possibly it 
seemed to some of the residents that there was too 
much saintliness. At any rate discontent arose over 
this name, and various artful schemers tried to bet- 
ter it. "Albion," "Lowell" and other names were sug- 
gested in vain. Finally Charles Hoag, one of the 
crowd at the St. Anthony jewelry store club, wrote 
the editor of the Express the following letter : 
"Minnehapolis, opposite St. Anthony, Nov. 5, 1852. 
Mr. Bowman : We are accustomed on this side of 
the river to regard your paper as a sort of exponent of 
public sentiment and as a proper medium of public 
expression. My purpose in writing this letter is to 
suggest a remedy for the anomalous condition we occu- 
py of dwelling in the place selected by the constituted 
authorities of Hennepin County, as the county seat, 
which yet bears no name unless the miserable mis- 
nomer "All Saints" shall be considered so thrust upon 



• THE VILLAGE OF MINNEAPOLIS 53 

us that the unanimous determination of the inhabi- 
tants cannot throw it off. It is a name that is applica- 
ble to no more than two persons in the vicinity of the 
falls and of doubtful application even to them. 

The name I propose is Minnehapolis — derived from 
Minnehaha, "laughing water," with the Greek affix 
"polis," a city, meaning "laughing water city" or "city 
of the falls." You perceive that I spell it with an "h" 
which is silent in the pronunciation. 

This name has been favorably received by many of 
the inhabitants to whom it has been proposed, and 
unless a better can be suggested, it is hoped that this 
attempt to christen our place will not prove as abortive 
as those heretofore named. I am aware other names 
have been proposed such as Lowell, Brooklyn, Addies- 
ville, etc., but until some one is decided upon we intend 
to call ourselves — Minnehapolis." 

The editor commented on this letter in his next is- 
sue as follows : 

"Minnehapolis — the name is an excellent one — the 
'h' being silent, as our correspondent recommends 
and as custom would soon make it, is euphonious — 
the nice adjustment of the Indian 'Minne' with the 
Greek 'polis' forms a beautiful compound ; and finally 
it is as all names should be, when it is possible, de- 
scriptive of the location." 

From that time forward all other names were forgot- 
ten and Minneapolis, dropping its silent letter in spell- 
ing, became famous for its beautiful name as for its 
useful products. 

Congress Acts Favorably. In August, 1852, Con- 
gress passed the long-desired act limiting the Fort 
Snelling Reservation. This meant that all of the land 
on the west side of the river as far south as a line pass- 
ing along Brown's (Minnehaha) creek, through Rice, 



54 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

Amelia (Nokomis) Mother and Duck lakes to the 
Minnesota River could be purchased at $1.25 an acre. 
The whole amount received by the government for this 
part of the reservation was $20,666.11. For his eighty- 
six acres comprising the best of the present district, 
Stevens paid a little more than a hundred dollars — 
or rather Steele paid it for him. But it must be re- 
membered that the sale did not take place until May, 
1855. Until that date all the settlers were really squat- 
ters subject to having their cabins thrown into the 
river. 

The Bell. Nevertheless they sent out their challenge 
to the world. In the Express for November, 1853, we 
read: 

"The clear and pleasant tone of the Minneapolis 
bell is now heard distinctly on this side three times a 
day. Our neighbors are fortunate in being thus early 
favored with so fine a bell." 

This "clear and pleasant tone" proceeded from the 
town clock, located in a building on First Avenue and 
First Street which is yet standing. 

Rapid Development. After 1855 the development 
of the west side was very marked. Uncertainty of 
title was no more; so the citizens felt justified in mak- 
ing extensive improvements. People now came in in- 
creasing numbers to cultivate the fertile soil around 
the village and to engage in various mercantile and 
professional pursuits — people who did not dream that a 
thousand dollars ever would be paid for an acre six 
miles from Bridge Street. Nor did they dream that 
that street ever would reach out two long tentacles 
called Nicollet and Hennepin Avenues away into the 
old Indian country where the Ponds had studied Da- 
kota. Nor did they think that a thousand dollars a 
front foot for lots on these avenues would become 



THE VILLAGE OF MINNEAPOLIS 55 

as much a matter of history as the giving away of 
the lots. 

One of these pioneers tells of pushing through the 
mud between Harriet and Calhoun, then through an 
almost impenetrable jungle, to reach a hundred and 
sixty acres for which he had paid three hundred dol- 
lars. Now that he is about to plat that piece and 
sell it at two thousand dollars an acre he smiles to 
recall his early feelings. When he arrived and saw 
the land all covered with great trees and a jungle of 
brush he wept bitter tears at having been cheated. 
Another pioneer relates that he refused the lots near 
where the Nicollet House now stands in payment for a 
cow "because they were covered with water and cat- 
tails." Still another amusingly describes his grief at 
losing a dollar in change on the beach at Lake Harriet 
when he was on a swimming excursion, and his joy at 
finding every cent of it shining on the sand when he 
took his next swim two weeks later. 

Brown's Falls Become Famous. In 1855 Longfel- 
low published his "Hiawatha." It is said that a dag- 
guerreotype of Little (or Brown's) Falls, taken by his 
friend Alexander Hesler, was the chief inspiration to 
this work. Whether he misunderstood the meaning 
of the word "Minnehaha" or not, his special use of it 
fixed the name ; and the poem and falls acted one upon 
the other to win popularity. Travelers were not con- 
tent to leave Minneapolis without visiting the scene 
of Hiawatha's care for his maiden — so well expressed 
in the statue that now stands in the middle of the 
stream just above the cataract. In 1856 a road was 
constructed from the newly christened Minnehaha 
Falls — a name that has advertised Minneapolis more 
than any other thing — through the village to the 
Christmas farm on the north side, passing the Nicollet 



56 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

House. Various sections of that road are now called 
respectively Minnehaha Avenue, Cedar Avenue and 
Washington Avenue. That the long road was felt to 
be necessary is another proof of the impetus which 
the community had been given in one short year. 




STATUE OF HENRY W. LONGFELLOW IN" LONGFELLOW 
ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS AT MINNEHAHA FALLS 

Early Governmental Divisions. In 1856, by act of 
the legislature, Minneapolis was allowed to incorporate 
as a town. The town was described in the act as that 
territory included within the following boundaries : 
"from a point on the Mississippi where the line be- 
tween sections ten and fifteen intersects the river 
(Twenty-Sixth Avenue North) thence west to the 
southwest corner of section fifteen (Lyndale Ave- 
nue) thence south to the southwest corner of section 
twenty-seven (Hennepin Avenue) thence east to the 
river, thence north to the point of beginning." The 
town was divided, like St. Anthony City, into four 
wards, but each of these sent onlv one councilman to 



THE VILLAGE OF MINNEAPOLIS 57 

the board. H. T. Welles, first mayor of St. Anthony, 
was also the first president of this board, which was 
empowered to establish "by-laws, rules and regulations 
to govern the town." This incorporation, however, 
was found to be too expensive ; so Minneapolis reverted 
to township government in 1862. Then six years later 
as we shall see, it was incorporated as a city. 

Since the people of the city had so much to do with 
the township of Minneapolis, nearly all of which is 
now incorporated within the city limits, a word re- 
garding that organization will make clear some points 
concerning the extension of the city in the years from 
1862 to 1890. The early limits of the township of Min- 
neapolis were on the north, a line beginning at the 
river and running due west (Thirty-eighth Avenue 
North) for six miles, then due south six miles, thence 
due east to the river (Lake Street), thence north to the 
point of beginning. These boundaries the county com- 
missioners established in 1858. Two years later two 
tiers of sections were taken from the northern end 
and added to Crystal Lake Township, bringing the 
northern boundary down to a line since followed by 
Plymouth Avenue. Finally in 1867 a strip embracing 
the two northern tiers of sections and some additional 
land was taken from Richfield township and added 
to Minneapolis township. This brought the southern 
boundary down to Minnehaha creek. Thus we see 
that the city has pushed over both northern and south- 
ern township boundaries, and has incorporated over 
half of the land toward the western boundary of the 
township. 

The Wonderful Country Behind the Falls. We have 
said that behind this community was a rich country. 
It was stated in the papers that "wheat ought to be 
raised as profitably as it was in Illinois and sold to 



58 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

the Indians." It is equally interesting to read the first 
cautious statements of the Hennepin County Agri- 
cultural Society: 

"Resolved that it is the opinion of this society that 
Minnesota is a good stock-growing community." 

This society held the first fair, forerunner to the great 
Minnesota State Fair, in 1854. Experiments soon 
proved that these statements were far too conservative. 
At this day when we are making our soil yield so many 
varieties of grain and fruit, the enthusiastic prophecy 
of Rev. Chas. Seccomb in a sermon preached in 1853 
sounds almost trite. He said in part: 

"Minnesota, with its productive soil, is destined to 
minister a wealth not to be despised even in so great 
a nation, with its bracing clime and healthful at- 
mosphere is destined to produce a race of men who 
will make the world feel their influence ; with its cen- 
tral position it will command at once the advantage 
of the north, the south, the east and the west." 

To develop this great country the Pacific Railroad 
Company began a survey in 1853 but, as w T e shall see, 
nothing further was done to bring the railroad to Min- 
neapolis until fifteen years later. It seemed as though 
the Mississippi were resisting all attempts to steal 
its commerce ; and that it bore its various craft, both 
above and below the falls, with the greater pride as 
its opponent drew nearer and nearer. A line of steam- 
boats to run between Pittsburg and Minneapolis was 
established and the service between the city and lower 
river points greatly improved. But the belief that only 
a few years could elapse before the railroad would 
run into the interior was the great stimulus to the de- 
velopment of the state. 

To show what this growth was, it is only necessary 
to quote the census report. Between 1850 and 1860 the 



THE VILLAGE OF MINNEAPOLIS 59 

population of the state increased from 6,000 to 172,000. 
Another witness to the same fact is the lowering of the 
"Alaska" prices that had made life so hard. Meat was 
now only 8 and 10 cents a pound, butter 13 and 15, 
eggs 10 and 12 cents a dozen. Potatoes at 80 cents a 
bushel and flour at $4.56 a barrel were lone exceptions 
to this decreased scale of prices. From far out in the 
Minnetonka district farmers were hauling wheat to the 
mills and to the stores, for even the drug stores bought 
wheat in those days. Said one of these farmers later: 

"Just think of six or eight merchants upon as many 
wagons, each with his brass tester in his hand and half 
the farmers disputing with the man of the brass pail 
as to the correctness of the weight or grade of his 
load of wheat. On the whole it used to be much of a 
pandemonium." 

Mr. Curtis H. Pettit, who soon after his arrival in 
1855 sent to Davenport for a thousand barrels of 
salt pork because "there was nothing else to eat," 
found difficulty in disposing of what was left after 
the first season, and some of it he had in stock 
the third year. The farmers were discovering that 
their own Minnesota was a good hog country. 
Finally the published mail schedule of the time informs 
us that routes were in operation to St. Cloud, Buffalo, 
Hutchinson and Henderson as well as to Excelsior and 
Osseo. Thus we see that the Dual City was able to 
partake of the bounty of a great territory. 

The Flour Industry Develops. The waterpower 
had been further developed by 1857, so that we read 
of the Cataract Mills of Minneapolis and two other 
flouring mills in St. Anthony. There was local de- 
mand enough to use the product until 1858 when the 
steamer Minnesota took the first shipment at a freight 
charge of $2.25 a barrel. Only capital was needed to 



60 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

make this waterpower turn the wheels of a score of 
great industries ; and this capital was not long delayed. 

Churches and Schools are Built. Such expansion 
brought to Minneapolis (along with its stores and of- 
fices), schools and churches. Methodists, Presby- 
terians, Baptists, Free Baptists and Episcopalians had 
erected buildings before 1857. Congregationalists, Old 
Style Presbyterians and Swedenborgians were wor- 
shipping in halls at Second Avenue South and Wash- 
ington. Besides schools in North Minneapolis and 
what was known as Lower Minneapolis, the Central- 
Union School (with a high school department) on the 
spot where the city and county building now stands 
was making a proud record. The editor of the Falls 
Evening News told his readers that 450 pupils and 
10 teachers in this school had given him great satis- 
faction especially in the analysis of sentences, in 
the expertness and correctness of its arithmetic and its 
self-government. The best traditions of America were 
being followed by her children of this wilderness. 

A Community of Moral Force. It scarcely needs to 
be remarked that the moral purpose that moved the 
townspeople of St. Anthony passed over the bridge 
with the miller, merchant, farmer, lawyer and doctor. 
Nearly everyone belonged to the Carson League, a 
temperance organization, or to the Independent Order 
of Good Templars, then at its height. Colonel Stevens 
asserts that none of the first settlers was ever present- 
ed on a criminal charge. As we have said, the fact that 
there was no gold or other "get rich quick" induce- 
ment here ; but only a cordial invitation from falls 
and soil to come and labor with them, shut out a horde 
of bad men and adventurers who made other parts of 
the west notorious for wickedness. Rather than that 
purposeful men by the score determined to make a 



THE VILLAGE OF MINNEAPOLIS 61 

good, as well as a great, city. Such influences sur- 
rounding the growing youth of the little town made 
it possible for them to become cultured in mind and 
spirit, while the great woods, the broad prairies and 
the mighty river all called them to be active, ambitious 
citizens. 

Panic and Ginseng. In the midst of this develop- 
ment came the terrible panic of 1857 — a panic largely 
due to the failure of the Ohio Loan and Trust Com- 
pany. Gold and silver almost entirely disappeared 
from circulation ; eastern capital, the only stay of a 
pioneer community, withdrew its support. The bottom 
seemed to have dropped out of the hopper. To make 
matters worse, crops failed. In a sketch of the Univer- 
sity of Minnesota, Judge John B. Gilfillan says: 

"It would be difficult if not impossible now even for 
those who lived through the experience, to realize the 
height of speculative balloon prosperity existing in the 
territory prior to the crash of 1857, or the depth of 
financial collapse and gloom that followed it." 

A pioneer writes that "Saved by Ginseng" would 
have been a fitting inscription to place over many a 
farmer's door in that year. Ginseng, a root much cov- 
eted by the Chinese, grew in great quantities in the 
shady woods of Hennepin county. So farmers left 
agriculture to become hunters of ginseng. They sold 
their product to a storekeeper on Eighth Avenue at a 
fancy price. These lines published in one of the news- 
papers of the time show the interest that the new 
industry aroused : 

"The shades of night were falling fast 
As o'er a muddy highway passed 
A youth who bore across a stick, 
A tin pail, knapsack, hoe and pick, 
Dig ginseng. 



62 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

There through the livelong summer day, 
'Tis dug and washed and piled away ; 
But whether clarified or dry, 
Celestials will forever cry — 
Dig ginseng. 

But even with this salvation, times were so hard that 
half the houses of Minneapolis were vacant in 1858 and 
1859. Another citizen of the infant Minneapolis adds 
to this testimony the statement that when his brother 
on his way to the Falls stopped at St. Paul, he 
asked : 

"What kind of a place is Minneapolis?" 

"Oh," said some one, "there was a start made up 
there but the place is dead now — nothing there worth 
while." 

Up to this time the efforts and plans of Minneapoli- 
tans seemed to such critics to have resulted in 
establishing a common country village centered about 
an unbridled roaring cataract and a number of mud 
holes. 

Out of the Cloud. Despite the hard times the little 
city held its faith. A directory published in 1859 
claimed 5,300 people for Minneapolis to only 6,700 for 
St. Anthony. The two were indeed known as the Dual 
City and were confidently expected to unite their 
forces in one government as they had already com- 
bined for commercial and social benefit. A joint 
trade on the Mississippi measured by fifty-two arriv- 
ing steamboats a year bound them together. Their 
lodges, schools, churches and newspapers bound them 
together. Two bridges besides the suspension bridge 
bound them together. In 1859 earnest men of both 
cities founded the Minneapolis Athenaeum largely 
through whose efforts Minneapolis owes its present 
fine library advantages. As the directory publishers 



THE VILLAGE OF MINNEAPOLIS 



63 



stated, there was "no city in the world of equal num- 
ber of inhabitants" that gave "such unmistakable evi- 
dence of their moral ability as this, in the number of 
newspapers, magazines and books taken and read by 
them." No wonder, then, that the community thus en- 
forced by a united feeling and backed by a great fertile 
country, looked steadfastly into the future. 




THE STEVENS HOUSE 



CHAPTER IV 

BECOMING A CITY (1861-1872) 

Enlisting for the Union. The Civil War burst 
upon the country just at the time when St. Anthony 
and Minneapolis needed a period of peace. They had 
been settled amid hardships, they had begun to reap 
the harvest of their faithful labors, they were pre- 
pared to perform yet harder tasks in reclaiming the 
great Northwest from savagery when the fatal shot 
was fired at Fort Sumter. But there was no hesita- 
tion. As Minnesota proudly recalls that she was the 
first state to answer the call for volunteers under the 
direction of her sturdy war-governor — Ramsey — so 
these cities laid aside their work and offered them- 
selves for sacrifice. 

On April 18, 1861, Ignatius Donnelly, Lieutenant- 
Governor, acting for Ramsey, who was in Washing- 
ton, proclaimed that ''volunteers will be received at 
the city of St. Paul for one regiment of infantry to 
report to the Adjutant General." To fill the ranks of 
that First Regiment, which afterward performed its 
heroic deed at Gettysburg, many a citizen of the falls 
towns left his counter or his tools; and those who 
could not go fought the good fight in spirit. It is re- 
corded that John S. Pillsbury, outraged by the talk 
of a ''copperhead" who was depreciating the citizens 
of the northern states, stepped from behind his coun- 
ter and told the fellow that he had said enough. The 
fellow stopped. Home guards were organized to pro- 
tect the state, and W. D. Washburn, afterwards 
United States Senator from Minnesota, was their cap- 



66 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

tain. Bridge Square was full of men hoisting the 
Stars and Stripes. Companies of soldiers, especially 
the picturesque St. Anthony Zouaves, paraded the 
streets, and the Silver Grays, comprising the society 
dancing-men, were proud to escort Company A, of 
the First, across the suspension bridge. Captain Tap- 
per was more than proud to waive the regular toll. 
Up to the Nicollet House marched soldiers and danc- 
ers together, and many a dancer before long became 
a soldier in deed as well as in spirit. It was a time of 
times. 

Bidding the Soldiers Good-bye. Fort Snelling was 
the rallying ground. Here, from all over the young 
state, flocked the best of her citizens to fill, not one, 
but, finally, twelve regiments. Here went the moth- 
ers and the sisters of thousands still in their teens 
(for the soldier-boy was a boy in reality, the average 
age being nineteen) and many a wife, trembling, yet 
glad to give her husband to the cause. Colors waved, 
bands played, companies marched and counter- 
marched before these spectators just as they do now 
on that old parade-ground. Among the news items 
of the times we find that Miss Godding's Sigourney 
Boarding School celebrated May-day picnicking at 
Minnehaha, then visited the fort. The girls cheered 
the soldiers and were themselves cheered by being 
introduced to Governor Ramsey and Colonel Gor- 
man. It was fine that the deep meaning of it all 
could be hidden behind the picnic occasions that the 
fort witnessed when the crowds attended — fine that 
the dainties both of wearing-apparel and- of food 
could be lavished as they were upon these boys soon 
to know the rigors of a muddy camp by night and the 
pangs of starvation by day. There was among other 
festivities a grand picnic on Nicollet Island, to which 



INCOMING A CITY 



67 



Colonel Gorman grandly led his First Regiment. It 
is interesting to read the good advice given the de- 
parting soldiers : "Be temperate in all things ; espe- 
cially avoid the use of whiskey," "Remember to rub 
common hard soap into your stockings before pull- 
ing them on for a long march," with numberless pri- 
vate injunctions. 




THE SOLDIER MONUMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY 



The Indian Scare. After this excitement, when 
the First, with "its black felt hats, black trousers and 
red shirts," prophetic of the black days of civil con- 
flict and the blood shed by brothers (or did they mean 
hope in the midst of darkness?) had gone to the front 
and the Second was organizing, the affair of march- 
ing soldiers became more common to the cities. Then 
in 1862 they were stirred by a new fear. The Indians 



68 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

were on the warpath and were threatening to wipe 
out all the whites in the state. It seems certain that 
Little Crow had planned to fight his way to the falls 
cities, where he was to meet the western Sioux and 
Hole-in-the-Day's Chippewas; thus the business of 
destroying civilization could be made complete. It 
was no wonder that the people were chilled by fear; 
a more opportune time for the massacre could not 
have been chosen, a fact of which the Indians were 
well aware. They had become so incensed over their 
mistreatment by our government and by the traders, 
who preyed upon them, that they were prepared to 
go to all extremes; and they did. Besides, Acton, 
the place of the first killing, was not far from 
Minneapolis. For these reasons, the cities of the falls 
awaited with the greatest anxiety what a day might 
bring forth. They sent volunteers to the scenes of 
actual conflict — to New Ulm, Fort Ridgely, Wood 
Lake — and supplies to the wretched sufferers, whose 
stories are to be read in the collections of the Minne- 
sota State Historical Society. But General Sibley 
succeeded in thwarting the plans of the Sioux and in 
bringing a large number to punishment. Thirty-eight 
were hanged at Mankato, and the state breathed easi- 
er, although Blue Earth County did offer a prize on 
Indian scalps for some years after. This last fact, 
besides showing that whites, like Mr. Pond's Indians, 
have "too much human nature," is useful, also, to 
point out the extreme fear that the outbreak had 
aroused. Little Crow, the leader, wandered to the 
vicinity of Hutchinson, where, while picking; berries 
with his son, he was shot by a settler in cold blood. 
Waiting for the Close of the War. The remainder 
of the war-time passed rather uneventfully so far as 
the falls towns were concerned. They lived the life 



BECOMING A CITY 69 

of other rural communities; citizens attended to their 
milling-, their store-keeping and their office-work ; 
they sent their children to school and on Sunday took 
their families to church. This regularity of life was 
broken only by the departure of recruits for the front, 
the return of soldiers on furlough and the fascinating, 
though terrible, news of battle. The news could not 
come in column and in picture fresh from the scene ; 
it had to make its way toilsomely by rail to Prairie du 
Chien, then even more toilsomely by boat to St. An- 
thony. There was therefore much guessing and de- 
bating over the meagre scraps that filtered in. Let- 
ters from the boys on duty and the later accounts of 
the newspaper correspondents would finally complete 
these skeleton stories, and establish the fact of vic- 
tory or defeat. Of course, there could be little devel- 
opment of agriculture or of industry until the out- 
come of the contest could be determined. 

Going Ahead Again. But the news of Appomattox 
was new life to St. Anthony and Minneapolis. Re- 
turning soldiers, glad to escape the horrors of war, 
were anxious to show what they could do in peace. 
A Scandinavian immigration society was formed with 
the purpose of bringing into the state tried and true 
farmers and craftsmen who would, in the phrase of 
Webster, "develop all its vast resources, call forth its 
powers, build up its institutions." At the same time 
the more conservative, but equally solid, Germans, 
who had begun to pour into the state before the war, 
called to their relatives in the fatherland and were 
answered by a determined willingness to leave the 
old and put on the new. They made the woodland 
into the priceless fields of grain and turned the prairie 
sod into gold. Besides these immigrants more New 
Englanders, and thousands from Michigan, Illinois 



70 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

and Wisconsin, found their way to the state. Minne- 
sota went forward under this new impulse with re- 
markable speed. Between 1855 and 1860 its white 
population increased from. 68,812 to 172,023. From 
1860 to 1865 the increase was only to 250,199. But 
in the next five years it went up to 446,056. This 
crowd of energetic, but steady, people gave the set- 
tlement which we are discussing a fine backing. 

Controlling the Falls. The steady roar of St. An- 
thony Falls drowned even the noise of battle. At the 
very time that Grant was hammering Lee before 
Richmond in the last determined effort to smash the 
Confederacy, the Union Board of Trade ,of Minneap- 
olis and St. Anthony was calmly preparing its First 
Annual Report of Manufacturing Industry, calling at- 
tention to the great opportunities for investment at 
Minneapolis. Three years later it described in detail 
what had been done to make the water power avail- 
able — on the Minneapolis side a main dam extending 
into the river 350 feet, then upstream for 530 feet, with 
a wing running diagonally to the center of the stream 
and an artificial canal 100 feet from the shore line, 55 
feet wide and 14 feet deep, running from the shore 
end of the dam down the bank of the river for 950 
feet ; on the St. Anthony side a dam 460 feet to Henne- 
pin Island, with a wing-dam over which the water 
poured, from the head of that island to meet the Min- 
neapolis wing at the center of the stream 950 feet dis- 
tant. The report showed how by tunneling the bank 
of the river below the falls and sinking a shaft to the 
tunnel, water-power of 40 feet head could be obtained 
for manufacturing purposes. Furthermore, the pam- 
phlet described the process by which the limestone 
ledge, a part of which Carver saw in the island amid 
stream, had been breaking off and the falls in conse- 



BECOMING A CITY 71 

quence receding, and the manner in which the "apron" 
of planning was to be constructed to carry the water 
down gentle slopes and thus prevent the source of 
power from journeying any farther up-stream. 

The grand total in value of over five million dollars' 
worth of manufactured goods, although so small an 
amount to the present manufacturer, was over three 
hundred dollars for each inhabitant of the two cities 
in 1868, and is not to be sneered at since it represented 
the persistent faith of the inhabitants in the future of 
the Dual City. This amount was the output of mills 
and factories making flour, lumber and its allied prod- 
ucts, machinery and iron work, and clothing. 

The Advantages of Minneapolis and St. Anthony. — 
People were urged to come to Minneapolis to see this 
enterprise and to partake of the advantages of a fine 
country. They were told of the dams, canals, aprons, 
sluices, tunnels and shafts of the waterpower, of the 
wheat elevators, city waterworks and public buildings, 
of the Suspension Bridge, Nicollet Island, the Univer- 
sity, Fair Grounds (then in South Minneapolis), Min- 
nehaha, Snelling, the caves in the limestone cliffs, the 
Chalybeate Springs, the many lakes and the "magnifi- 
cent views from the cupolas of the Winslow and Nicol- 
let Mouses." They were advised to try the "health- 
restoring properties of the wonderful atmosphere that 
has attracted thousands of pulmonary and other in- 
valids to share its beneficial results," because life 
could "be restored and the constitution built up under 
the conditions of this climate without the aid of medi- 
cine." One enthusiast went so far as to declare that 
there were "hundreds who had been saved from pre- 
mature death to bear witness to the effects of resi- 
dence" in this beautiful country. 



72 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

A Busy Village. That this industry was appreciated 
is plain to be seen. Five hundred houses were built in 
one year. The total cost of improvements for one year 
was over $2,000,000. Hennepin County clipped 17,000 
sheep and the two woolen mills of Minneapolis used 
a great part of their fleeces. Not only do the records 
of population and business enterprises prove it; the 
papers of the time tell the same story. In 1867 the 
Minneapolis Chronicle, a daily, was established. Its 
columns, read after nearly half a century seem fresh 
with the zeal of accomplishment. In one issue we 
read, "another grocery — these words are a by-word 
for we have added thirty in one year." These mer- 
chants began to deliver goods. The Chronicle re- 
marked on this innovation, ''If a person wants a 
dollar's worth of sugar or any other article too large 
to carry, these enterprising merchants will transport 
it for him, thus saving the expense of securing a team." 
Again we read that "the carpenters were as lively as 
crickets yesterday," that "the National Exchange 
Bank (there were three other banks) received $42,000 
and paid out $23,000," and that "calling into Savory's 
(the Nicollet House drug store) yesterday we noticed 
George fitting up a splendid show case which he had 
received from Chicago." A compliment is paid to Mr. 
Pence "who has built two substantial blocks during the 
past season and has done his share in building up 
Minneapolis." The following complaint is striking: 
"Most every lot is filled with the copious mill-wood. 
In the dark a man is sure to have his shins barked." 
Most significant of all is the item : 

"It is astonishing what a wholesale trade is opening 
in Minneapolis. Business houses that a few years ago 
did a business of thousands are now doing a business 
of hundreds of thousands. We have now wholesale 



L 




74 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

dealers in drygoods, clothing, groceries, hardware, 
stoves, boots and shoes, gent's furnishing goods, 
leather, liquor and drugs. Our St. Paul friends will 
have to look to their laurels." 

The New Center. — Washington Avenue had by this 
time become the great thoroughfare of Minneapolis 
as Main Street had been the chief artery of St. An- 
thony. A picture in the library of the Historical So- 
ciety gives a good idea of the importance of this street. 
It is a colored drawing so folded that it can be spread 
out in a single long strip thus bringing the whole 
street from Eighth Avenue South to Fourth Avenue 
North, with the various cross streets, before one. The 
center was the Nicollet House which the Chronicle 
advertised as "flourishing like a green bay tree." Here 
the notables who visited the city were catered to with 
extreme care. From this center they could easily 
sally forth— southward to the flour mills, northward 
to the wholesale houses, eastward on Nicollet or Hen- 
nepin to St. Anthony beyond the bridge, and to the 
University, passing the retail stores en route. Or they 
could easily attend an evening performance in the 
Pence Opera House at Hennepin and Second, the great 
musical and literary center of the town until the Acad- 
amy of Music was erected on the spot now covered by 
Temple Court. Westward were the Minneapolis 
churches — on Nicollet, at Fourth, Plymouth, and at 
Fifth, Union (First) Baptist ; on Hennepin at Fifth, 
the Universalist, and at Eighth, the Friends' ; on 
Fourth Street between the two avenues, Westminster; 
on Minnetonka (First Avenue South) at Seventh 
Street, the Methodist, even now hiding behind many 
business signs, and at Eighth, the First Presbyterian. 
The Episcopal Church was at Sixth Street and Rus- 
sell Avenue (Seventh Avenue South), and the Free 




LOOKING SOUTH FROM HENNEPIN ALONG FOURTH STREET 
IN THE SIXTIES 



From "A Half Century of Minneapolis" 



76 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

Will Baptist at Washington near Utah (First Avenue 
North). Between and beyond these churches as far 
as Tenth Street were residences. Beyond Tenth 
Street were wheat fields and pastures. So a guest 
at the Nicollet could reach any portion of the city 
in a five-minute walk. 

Or he could avail himself of the privileges set forth 
in this advertisement of the Nicollet: 

"This house is situated within a pleasant drive of 
the celebrated Falls of Minnehaha. Passengers will 
find on the arrival of boats splendid four-horse coach- 
es at the levee, in readiness to convey them to the 
house. The summer tourist will find in the immediate 
vicinity of the house an abundance of game and fish- 
ing in Lakes White Bear, Johanna, Harriet, Bass, 
Twin, Amelia, and Minnetonka." 

Getting a Railroad. — The entrance of the railroad 
was the cause of much rejoicing, the greater since the 
event had been awaited for twenty years. Folwell's 
History of Minnesota gives too good an account of the 
tribulations suffered by the people of the state over 
railroads to make a detailed story in these pages nec- 
essary. It is sufficient to say that in the early fifties, 
four railway companies had been organized — the Min- 
nesota and Pacific, to build from Stillwater to Breck- 
enridge and from St. Anthony to St. Vincent; the 
Transit to run from Winona through St. Peter to the 
western boundary ; the Root River and Southern Min- 
nesota to connect La Crescent with Rochester, St. 
Paul, St. Anthony and Mankato ; and the Minneapolis 
and Cedar Valley to join Minneapolis with Mendota, 
Faribault and Iowa points. Congress gave each of 
these lines a hundred and twenty sections of land for 
each twenty miles of its route. As soon as a com- 
pany had graded ten miles of its line it was permitted 



BECOMING A CITY 77 

to issue $100,000 of bonds drawing seven per cent, 
and when it had completed ten miles, $100,000 more. 
Every one was enthusiastic. In 1858 the dirt began 
to fly, the farmers even boarding the teamsters and 
laborers in order that there should be no lost time. 
It seemed as though the state would soon be furnished 
with a fine system of transportation. 

Then came the gloom of discouragement. It was 
whispered about that the state would have to pay the 
bonds issued by the companies. This the people de- 
clared that they would not do. The market closed 
against the bonds; for no one wanted to buy paper 
that could not be redeemed. All work stopped. In 
January of 1859 a public meeting in which Joel Bas- 
sett, Edward Murphy, W. D. Washburn and Dori- 
lius Morrison were prominent, passed a resolution 
calling on the railroads to build main lines instead 
of branches and protested against a tax being levied 
to pay their interest. That a line should reach St. 
Paul before Minneapolis was accommodated was also 
a matter for serious consideration, and some harsh 
criticism. In the belief that the companies had mis- 
managed affairs, the state legislature formally declared 
that Minnesota would not be responsible for any of 
their transactions, and confiscated their property. This 
was, however, given back in 1861. But the only 
operation of a railroad up to this time was the trip 
of the engine Wm. Crooks (now in the Great North- 
ern roundhouse at St. Paul) from St. Paul station to 
a storage shed — fourteen hundred feet distant — a long 
way from the Pacific. It looked as though a rail- 
way were a "delusion and a snare." 

Minnesota has the wrong climate for despair, how- 
ever. So in 1862 men rallied from the shock, reor- 
ganized the Minnesota and Pacific into the St. Paul 



78 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

and Pacific and built from St. Paul to St. Anthony. 
Others took heart, too, and without promising to reach 
oceans or even to run to Canada, companies began to 
serve the state. 

The First Railroads — Almost a City. According to 
the Chronicle, in 1867 there were the St. Paul and 
Pacific running a train to St. Cloud in four hours, and 
the Minnesota Central to Owatonna in the same time. 
This latter advertised connections at Owatonna with 
the Winona and St. Peter, which in turn connected 
with what is now the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. 
Paul, for points further east. In the next few years 
the construction of new lines went on until in 1870 
the Tribune's time table column contained announce- 
ments of the St. Paul and Pacific to Litchfield, the 
Milwaukee, St. Paul and Minneapolis (C, M. & St. P.) 
along the river and the St. Paul and Sioux City to 
Mankato (now C. } St. P., M. & O.). The Minnesota 
Central (now the I. and M. Division of the C, M. & 
St. P.) made connection at Farmington with the 
Hastings and Dakota which terminated at that town; 
and with the Winona and St. Peter at Owatonna. 

In 1870 Minneapolis shipped over these lines 
182,000,000 pounds of freight and received 22,000,000 
pounds. We who journey to Chicago or New York on 
a minute's notice, can hardly appreciate the joy of 
the man "who left Minneapolis for Washington, spent 
five days in Washington, three in New York and re- 
turned in fifteen days." The Chronicle remarked : 
"How different from a few years since when it would 
have taken ten days to reach New York." Thus it can 
be seen that Minneapolis was taking full advantage 
of the great state's prosperity and energy. As a corre- 
spondent said, it was "a flourishing, growing town, 
yes, city of eleven years from the time it was entered 



BECOMING A CITY 79 

at the Dubuque land-office as farming land and now — ■ 
what shall I say, five, six, seven, eight, nine or ten 
thousand inhabitants and manufactures rising like the 
mist of the Father of Waters around the falls." 

A City Indeed.— St. Anthony had long been a city. 
It was but natural, therefore, that Minneapolis should 
desire a like government. Moreover it was clear that 
the many interests centering about the falls could be 
much better managed through this form of govern- 
ment. So in 1867 the City of Minneapolis, through the 
grace of the legislature, took its rightful place among 
its sisters of the Republic. Its boundaries were the 
river on the east, and Sixth Avenue on the north, 
Lyndale on the west, a line on the south running very 
irregularly among the sections, beginning near the 
corner of Lyndale and Hennepin and extending to 
Cedar Avenue and on that avenue to the river. This 
territory was divided into four wards. The portion 
of what we now call North Minneapolis was the First 
Ward, the central business district the Second, and 
the outlying residence territory the Third and Fourth 
Wards. 

The charter provided the necessary machinery 
wherewith to conduct a city. The mayor was to be 
chosen every two years ; the council was to be com- 
posed of three aldermen from each ward, each serv- 
ing three years. A tire department and a system of 
street grading and lighting were planned for. It was 
now possible for Minneapolis to manage efficiently 
for her future greatness. 

The Chronicle contains some very interesting let- 
ters from citizens criticizing the new government 
and prophesying its future. In the first place the 
boundary line was assailed since it missed one tax- 
payer but included another, thus increasing his living 



80 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

expense. Many thought that the council was given 
too much power. It was a much mooted question 
whether the city would "go up the Mississippi or 
down" — seemingly few dreamed of its moving back 
from the river on to the farms about the lakes. 

Life in the City. Before we leave this period of 
the city's history, let us get a glimpse of the life of 
its people. The new city did not suddenly assume 
metropolitan airs — indeed it has always clung affec- 
tionately to its past even as some of its skyscrapers 
shelter the shacks that with brave plate-glass fronts 
dare to face the da}' of reinforced concrete. Occa- 
sionally a pig would wander down one of the streets. 
The boys enjoyed sliding down the hill that ap- 
proached the Suspension Bridge, often much to the 
terror of pedestrians who might suddenly be lifted 
into the air. The Suspension Bridge, where now the 
roar of traffic and rush of people make an argument 
for another bridge, was visited by lovers who wished 
to escape from the crowd. To our theatre-goers, who 
begin to don their wraps before the last act is finished, 
this newspaper notice by the Pence management may 
be suggestive : 

"People not leaving the hall after the show will be 
put out by the police." 

What was probably the first baseball club was or- 
ganized in a law office April 11, 1867. As has been 
said the Nicollet was the center of life. Here sleigh- 
ing-parties paused in their journeys long enough to 
warm themselves and to partake of the cheer for which 
that house was famed. The temperance movement 
had not yet reached its climax so that the Good 
Templar lodges were enthusiastically attended. Most 
interesting of all these incidents of village life is the 
fact that the business-men found time to attend noon 



BECOMING A CITY 81 

prayer-meetings. When we realize that some men 
now have to telephone while they eat we might won- 
der how the city ever could have been established did 
we not feel that many a man is like Chaucer's ser- 
geant of the law who "seemed busier than he was." 
Such reminiscences of the village are refreshing. 

To those boys and girls who think that too much 
pressure is brought to bear upon them by authority, 
the fact that it was necessary to control the past gen- 
eration must be somewhat soothing. We read that 
"the gardens of many of our citizens have been plun- 
dered in a most outrageous manner. Those commit- 
ting the depredations are a set of mischievous boys who 
are destined to come to a bad end. We cannot be- 
lieve that the parents of these boys would permit them 
to commit these depredations did they know it. An 
example should be made." And again "we notice 
that the boys will at times frequent the streets of Min- 
neapolis much to the disgust of citizens." Too much 
time seems to have been devoted to amusement, in the 
opinion of an editor who complains that "a good many 
of our young ladies and gentlemen on the several lawns 
of the city are constantly engaged in the exercise of 
croquet; a little healthy exercise is very well but at 
this season knitting-needles are about as useful in- 
struments and companions for young ladies as need 
be." Most of these mischievous boys and frivolous 
girls have become honored citizens. 

Prosperity. The new city and St. Anthony con- 
tinued to reap the full advantages of their location. 
They were on the high tide of prosperity. Every 
year told the same tale of increase and improvement. 
By the census of 1870 the two had a population of 
18,079. Sawmills and flour-mills and other industries 
were making money ; and on the strength of this 



5^ THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

money, streets were being paved, water mains laid and 
school buildings erected. In 1870 the gas ordinance 
was passed giving the company a forty-year franchise 
but including the right of the city to purchase when it 
desired to do so. There were 300 consumers, each of 
whom paid $6.00 per thousand feet. The fire depart- 
ment paraded its two hose companies and its ladder 
company through the streets, and was afterwards for- 
mally presented to the mayor and the city council. 

Increase in Land Values. Some idea of the upward 
tendency of business can be gained from the real estate 
advertisements of the time. In 1870 an eleven-room 
house at Eighth Street and Mary Place could be 
bought for $4,500, two acres at Chicago and Franklin 
Avenues for $1,700, five acres two miles from Wash- 
ington Avenue for $2,000. A part of the farm on which 
the West High School stands could be bought for $300 
an acre. Wild land was offered at from $2.50 to $7.00 
an acre. In one of the papers of the same year an ar- 
dent admirer of horse-racing, signing himself "2:10/' 
a familiar mile trotting record of the day, wondered 
why Tenth Street could not be used as a speedway. 
The mere fact that he proposed such a use of the street 
argues that there was little general traffic so far out 
to be interfered with. Such prices as have been quot- 
ed therefore for land far beyond Tenth Street were 
high — in fact they pointed to the boom which we 
shall soon consider. 

Better Educational Advantages. Education in this 
period did not lag behind business enterprise. To 
be sure the panic of 1857 had almost blotted' the Uni- 
versity out of existence. But the words of the stal- 
wart Richard Chute, if unconsciously, became the 
rallying cry of its friends. Said he : "The educational 
interests of our state demand that at an early day, pro- 



BECOMING A CITY 83 

vision should be made for putting a University in oper- 
ation and we trust that some efficient steps will be 
taken to secure the result." The first step was taken 
in 1864 when O. C. Merriman, John Nicols and John 
S. Pillsbury were appointed regents "to put the Uni- 
versity on its feet." They were so zealous that three 
years later the preparatory department was opened 
with a faculty of three and an attendance of seventy. 
The next year four other departments — of arts, agri- 
culture, law and medicine — were added, and in 1869 a 
farm purchased. To better administer this property 
the number of regents was increased to nine, includ- 
ing the Governor and the Superintendent of Instruc- 
tion. Prof. Wm. W. Folwell was called to the presi- 
dency of this struggling but promising institution — 
a position which he dignified until 1883. In the same 
year (1869) that witnessed this rebirth of the Univer- 
sity, the Swedish Lutherans established Augsburg 
Seminary, an institution of which more will be said in 
a later chapter. That the common schools shared this 
impulse is proved by the fact that in 1868 twenty-seven 
teachers were employed. Three years later O. V. 
Touseley began his long term of office during which 
he was able to put the school system on the firm foun- 
dation which has made its further development pos- 
sible, so that the name Minneapolis suggests to other 
parts of the country education, quite as much as it does 
flour and lumber. 

The "Dual City" Becomes Minneapolis. Mean- 
while St. Anthony had been moving ahead as con- 
sistently, if not as rapidly, as her neighbor. As we 
have seen she was a city of force. But the Mississippi 
River was too narrow to divide people whose indus- 
tries and conditions were the same. So in 1872 St. 
Anthony merged herself into the expanding Minneap- 



84 



THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 



olis and became known as East Division until even 
this distinction was abolished for the more suggestive 
''East Side." Thus was founded a city indeed — beauti- 
fied, not divided, by the great Mississippi. And thus 
begins the fourth great epoch of Minneapolis — an 
epoch destined to call forth all the ingenuity, all the 
shrewdness, all the energy that man possesses — an 
epoch the stories of which read like fairy tales. It was 
the time of the boomer and we must add, too, of the 
boomerang. 




THE CITY HALL — TORN DOWN IN 1912 TO MAKE ROOM 
FOR THE NEW GATEWAY PARK 

From "A Half Century of Minneapolis" 



CHAPTER V 

BOOM TIMES (1873-1893) 

Minnesota Growing. We have spoken of Minne- 
sota's increase of population during the years 1865-70. 
This population was engaged chiefly in raising wheat, 
and Minnesota was known in the encyclopaedias as a 
great wheat state. In 1870 her yield was fifteen mil- 
lions of bushels, but in the next two years this was 
increased to over twenty-two millions. The average 
yield per acre was eighteen bushels — the highest of 
any state east of the Rockies. Over two hundred 
flour-mills were working at this pile of wheat. Then 
nearly nine million pounds of butter were being 
chuVned. Thus Minnesota was on the road to win 
the title that has since so distinguished her — "the 
bread and butter state." 

To haul this wheat and other products the railways 
put forth every energy. In 1871 the St. Paul and Pa- 
cific reached Breckenridge and the new Northern Pa- 
ck, Moorhead, while the Southern Minnesota cut the 
tier of counties on the Iowa border as far as the Blue 
Earth river, and the Winona and St. Peter touched 
the Minnesota. In 1872 three hundred and fifty miles 
more were added — bringing the milage up to a total 
of 1,900 for the whole state. With the land ready, 
the people ready, and the railroads ready to care for a 
big crop it seemed as though the following year would 
break all records ; for over 2,000,000 acres were under 
cultivation. 

The Grasshopper Plague. Then came the grass- 
hoppers — swarms upon swarms filling the air like a 



86 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

dense cloud, darkening the sun and destroying every 
green thing. Old settlers tell of trees left bare of 
leaves and of pastures clipped to the dust. We could 
quite believe from these individual stories that nothing 
was raised throughout the state. But the statistics 
show that there was some increase of production over 
that of previous years. Since thirty millions of bush- 
els of wheat had been expected, however, the yield 
was a great disappointment. Many farmers were 
destitute. The 'hoppers continued their depredations 
with little rest until 1878, so that the state had to 
give these farmers $30,000. The progress of Minne- 
sota was not stopped, to be sure, but certainly hin- 
dered by this misfortune. 

The Panic of 73. Added to this 'hopper-plague was 
that of "frenzied finance." A period of prosperity 
tempting speculators to go beyond their means was 
bound to end in "paying the piper." Railway com- 
panies that had been given nearly sixty million dol- 
lars worth of land, over-capitalized and went down to 
ruin. According to Folwell, less than a hundred miles 
of line could be built during the next four years. This 
panic of 1873 was as wide-spread as that of 1857. 
Hence not only because the great state was affected, 
but because the capital of the country was seriously 
embarrassed, the city of Minneapolis had to pause on 
the very edge of riches while affairs were being ad- 
justed. 

The Flour Industry Booms. First of all the 'hop- 
pers were successfully dosed by the University ex- 
perts. Then in 1874 Geo. H. Christian installed the 
new middlings purifier which had been invented by 
Edmund La Croix, of Faribault, shortly before. This 
received the middlings, and by the use of sieves and 
air currents separated the pure wheat granules. These 



BE. ..." 




S k 



88 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

granules were reground and "bolted" into Minnesota 
patent at $3.00 a barrel, whereas before they had been 
lost in cheap feed. The new process completely revo- 
lutionized the manufacture of flour ; therefore it should 
be emphasized as a leading cause of the future great- 
ness of Minneapolis. Daily export of flour was now 
possible. In 1878 this amounted to 107,183 barrels, 
an amount doubling in five years, remaining stationary 
for a time then rapidly increasing again. This in- 
crease, as well as a better quality of flour, was due 
to the substitution of the steel roller process for the 
buhr stones after the explosion of 1878. Since then 
all flour mills have used this process — hence the name 
"roller mills." 

The Advancement of Agriculture in Minnesota. 
These improvements, with the restoration of confi- 
dence and the continued application of tireless farmers 
to their work, "boomed" the production of wheat so 
that in 1875 the thirty-million bushel mark had been 
passed, and in 1880 forty millions of bushels were har- 
vested. Besides this yield of wheat nearly fifteen mil- 
lions of oats, and over ten millions of corn were raised 
as against ten and five millions respectively in 1870. 
Still more striking is the fact that the 860 horses, 
2,000 cattle, 80 sheep and 733 hogs of 1850 had been 
multiplied by 1875 to 167,313 horses, 467,578 cattle, 
162,807 sheep and 141,810 hogs in 1875, and these fig- 
ures had been increased by 1880 to nearly three times 
the number of hogs and twice the number of cattle. 
The census of 1890 brought the production of wheat to 
52,000,000, of oats to 50,000,000," of corn to 25,000,000, 
of barley to 9,000,000, of hay to 3,000,000 tons, of 
swine to nearly a million and of cattle to a million 
and a quarter. Butter production increased to 12,000,- 



BOOM TIMES 89 

000 pounds in 1875, 19,000,000 in 1880 and 35,000,000 in 
1890. 

The railroads, recovered from their financial 
troubles, began a second era of expansion. Before 
the end of the period which we are discussing the iron 
horse reached nearly every farmer in the state. Towns 
sprang up as if by magic along these lines, each pre- 
senting to the eye of the traveler a row of elevators 
and warehouses, a flour mill parallel to the track and 
two rows of busy stores facing each other on "Main 
Street," which usually crossed the tracks at right an- 
gles. On almost any dav the tourist would see dozens 
of teams tied in front of these stores — teams of farm- 
ers whose preemptions, homesteads or tree-claims, 
given by the government, or lands sold by the rail- 
road or real estate agent at from two to five dollars 
per acre, were now worth from twenty-five to fifty 
dollars per acre. 

Extension of Railroads. Not only was agriculture 
on this solid basis but the mining industry, opened in 
the eighties, reached beyond the guess of prospectors 
by 1890. Duluth, a struggling village until 1880, now 
became a great lake port. To connect this city with 
Minneapolis and St. Paul on the one hand, and with the 
great Dakota wheat fields, which had begun to threaten 
Minnesota's supremacy, on the other, so that wheat 
could be sent more directly eastward, became the aim 
of the railroads. Besides this the Northern Pacific 
and Great Northern railways, the latter, under the 
presidency of James J. Hill, had really become Pacific 
lines and were carrying passengers, transferred to their 
lines at the Twin Cities, to points in North Dakota, in 
Montana, in far off Washington and in boundless Can- 
ada. 

When one stops to think that the territory served 



90 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

by these lines, to say nothing of the great state of 
South Dakota, was larger in the years 1880 to 1890 
than all of the country east of the Alleghanies, in 
other words than the original thirteen states, and real- 
izes that Minneapolis and St. Paul were at the very 
gateway to its vast fields it is no wonder that the Twin 
Cities, as they were now called, rushed excitedly on 
their way. It now seemed as wise to unite them as 
it had been to join Minneapolis and St. Anthony. In 
this period their borders touched even if their govern- 
ments remained separate ; and the ten miles from cen- 
ter to center was first traveled by street car. 

A Fortunate Combination of Circumstances. There 
was another good reason for the growth of Minneap- 
olis at this time. It is given in the report of City As- 
sessor Plummer for 1885 : 

"About the year 1880 we were favored with a com- 
bination of circumstances such as it has been the good 
fortune of few cities to meet. For several years prior 
to 1880 we were making comparatively slow growth, 
while the northwestern empire tributary to us was 
making tremendous strides in development until in 
1880 the country had far outgrown the cities. About 
this time manufacturing and general business became 
depressed after a long period of prosperity, with the 
result that many individuals withdrew their capital 
from uncertain enterprises and sought homes and in- 
vestments in the western cities ; from this source we 
drew our full share. At the same time several of our 
leading railways acquired extensive terminal facilities 
in Minneapolis. In 1883 the Northern Pacific was 
completed to the coast. From this remarkable com- 
bination of circumstances we have achieved the splen- 
did results of todav." 



BOOM TIMES 91 

Getting Better Connections. Let us now notice 
some of the most important movements in the Minne- 
apolis of this time. In 1875 a Board of Trade was 
organized under the presidency of Samuel Gale at 14 
Nicollet Avenue, then in the very center of affairs, to 
push the interests of the young city. It appointed 
committees on water power, manufacturing, jobbing, 
railroads, legislation and public grounds. Among 
the names of these committeemen we find those of the 
Chutes and Pillsburys and of Welles, Atwater, Dorili- 
us Morrison and Eugene Wilson — all of whom after re- 
ceiving honor at the hands of their fellow citizens, have 
passed on — and Loring and Brackett who are still 
contributing to the strength of Minneapolis. This 
body continued to exert a strong influence on all phases 
of city activity until its work became divided among 
several commercial organizations. 

Next let us see exactly how she was connected with 
the outside world. Besides the lines we mentioned in 
the last chapter and the two just referred to we must 
notice the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul which 
crossed over from St. Paul in 1881, and soon after 
purchasing the Hastings and Dakota, ran it directly 
into Minneapolis and to Aberdeen, South Dakota. 
To William D. Washburne the city is chiefly indebted 
for two lines both aimed to make Minneapolis inde- 
pendent and to maintain just rates against Chicago — 
the Minneapolis and St. Louis, and the Minneapolis, 
St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie, more familiarly called 
the "Soo Line." This road was built east and west of 
Minneapolis in 1887, connecting with the Canadian Pa- 
cific and insuring thus through service to either coast. 
The St. Louis, besides tapping the Iowa territory 
through which its first line ran, soon began to probe 
for trade in South Dakota. These lines with the ex- 



92 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

tension of the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and 
Omaha, and the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and 
Kansas City( afterwards the Great Western) into the 
southwestern part of the state and the Wisconsin Cen- 
tral and Burlington coaxing some of the Wisconsin 
trade into the city, made of Minneapolis the hub of a 
great wheel that was turning around at a terrific rate, 
dropping dollars into the pockets of her business men 
at every revolution. 

At this time it was confidently expected that 
a great manufacturing center would be established. 
To bring this about it was not hard to interest mon- 
eyed men, for they saw the peculiar advantages en- 
joyed by the city. Industries of every sort sprang up, 
factories poured forth their smoke on every side, men 
rushed into labor with head and with hand ; and over 
all was the genius of the promoter and through all the 
nerve of the exploiter. 

This apologetic item explains itself: "There may 
seem to be a good deal in the Journal about Minneap- 
olis today, but you must remember that Minneapolis 
is getting to be a very large subject." 

Minneapolis Leads the World in Lumber and Flour 
Manufacturing. What was manufactured? In the 
first place, the flour mills were turning out thirty thou- 
sand barrels a day in 1885 ; in 1890 nearly forty thou- 
sand barrels. In one year, 1886, six million barrels 
of flour were ground. Eighteen large saw mills from 
Camden Place almost to the Tenth Avenue Bridge 
were producing considerably more than a quarter of a 
billion feet of lumber a year. It is noteworthy that 
when the Republican National Convention met in 
Minneapolis in 1892 the official badge for citizens was 
a strip of red ribbon, one end of which was attached to 
a miniature log, the other to a barrel of flour, signify- 



C H THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

ing wherein lay the city's claim to greatness from 
a commercial point of view. She was leading 
the cities of the world in the production of flour and 
lumber. Cooper shops were kept busy supplying the 
flour-trade ; and sash and door factories were filling the 
air with their screech as they vainly tried to make 
this lumber into house-parts as fast as the new settlers 
wanted them. Besides these industries, machinery 
and furniture factories sprang up to supply the farm- 
ers of the northwest. It is suggestive that while in 
1876 the total value of manufactured products other 
than wheat and flour was less than four millions of dol- 
lars, this had grown by 1890 to ten millions, divided 
among agricultural implements, barrels, cars, clothing, 
machinery, foundry products and furniture. In one 
year, 1884, all the products were worth $27,000,000 and 
from 1881 to 1887 over $300,000,000 worth of articles 
were made in Minneapolis. 

A Period of Speculation. It seems strange now that 
men ever should have dreamed the fantastic shapes 
that filled their minds. Suburbs ten miles from the 
center of the city were laid out around factories adver- 
tised to draw the city right to their doors Avithin a 
year or two. Hopkins and St. Louis Park on the 
southwest side vied with New Brighton, Fridley and 
Irondale on the northeast. The two former places 
boasted a score of hopeful machinery plants, New 
Brighton, a mile of stockyards and several packing- 
houses, Irondale a great iron-mill, and Fridley a num- 
ber of small factories. The traveler on the Great 
Northern wonders as he passes through the scrub oak 
woods what the occasional holes in the ground or 
brick piles mean, unless he chances to meet the lone 
inhabitant of what was once the proud village of Frid- 
lev. Then he wonders why a track should suddenlv 



BOOM TIMES 95 

turn off from the main line to wander among these 
scrub oaks, until the conductor informs him that it is 
the Belt Line used only now during the fall "run" of 
stock. Cattle on their way to Chicago are transported 
over this stub to the feeding and watering troughs 
at New Brighton. All that remains of that town's past 
glory, except it be the empty four-story brick hotel 
once crowded with cattle brokers, are the three hun- 
dred villagers who, after a long period of hope deferred 
learned the value of serving the soil and have thus sus- 
tained themselves in a pleasant and comfortable way. 
On the road the Belt Line passes near a ruin of brick 
and twisted iron which nature has almost covered, as 
though to hide the folly of man. It is the remains of 
the great mill destroyed by fire after a hard fight 
against fate. A few of the fifty houses built by the 
company for their employees are to be found on the 
neighboring farms, bought for a song. 

Farms were platted at $200 a lot in these remote re- 
gions. The land company which exploited New Brigh- 
ton paid $500 per acre for the two miles of territory 
over which the village stretches — and sold it back to 
the farmers at less than half the price. Syndicates pur- 
chased land in Eden Prairie township twelve miles 
from Bridge Square. St. Louis Park has valiantly tried 
to fill the great gaps between the scattered settlements 
which the speculators left in her vast domain ; but until 
the recent sane demand for residence property the 
greatest portion of this land has been devoted to garden 
truck. Hopkins, whose official title is West Minneapo- 
lis, although now distinctly on the solid path to suc- 
cess, presents a view of much pasturage between her 
eastern and western settlements. The truth is that not 
even the wealth of a Rockefeller poured out upon this 
territory could have made the great Minneapolis of 



96 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

which these promoters dreamed — a city greater than 
London. The state, rich as it was, had little more 
population than Chicago and it needed no such colossal 
"gateway" as Minneapolis promised to become. 

Minneapolis a Great Business Center. Upon the 
strength of this vast production of foodstuffs and 
utilities, and the unparalleled opportunity for com- 
merce that it provided, the business of the city could 
not help "booming." Hon. George Pillsbury in 1885 in 
an address before the American Bankers' Association, 
declared that the jobbing trade of Minneapolis had 
increased from $5,000,000 in 1876 to $58,000,000 in 
1884; the retail trade from $8,000,000 to $38,000,000; 
and that the assessed valuation had reached $85,000,- 
000. In 1878 Mayor Rand had prophesied that within 
thirty years from that date the assessed valuation 
would reach to $60,000,000. In 1886 Minneapolis in- 
creased in population 30,000, in valuation $30,000,000. 
That year her manufactures amounted to $62,000,000, 
her real estate sales to $38,000,000. She erected nearly 
5,000 buildings, doubled her water mains and graded 
sixty miles of streets. According to a special edi- 
tion of the Journal in 1889, the jobbers in that year 
collected $175,000,000. The same edition informs us 
that 1,135 retail firms had combined capital amount- 
ing to $2,000,000. The assessed valuation had climbed 
to $130,000,000. The bank clearings had increased in 
five years from $166,000,000 to $240,000,000. These fig- 
ures tell most graphically the story of business ex- 
pansion in the fat years. 

Taking In More Territory — Lot Sales. We have 
spoken of the suburban excitement. Let us see what 
growth the city itself made. To begin with, the limits 
were twice within the years we are discussing (1873- 
1893) pushed out beyond Twenty-fourth Street South 



BOOM TIMES 97 

and Twenty-sixth Avenue North upon the farms — first 
in 1883, southward to Forty-sixth Street, and north- 
ward to Thirty-sixth Avenue and Twenty-ninth Ave- 
nue, on the west and east sides of the river respec- 
tively ; then in 1887 to the present boundaries (see 
map). To be sure the 18,000 people of 1870 had in- 
creased by 1880 to 47,000, by 1885 to nearly 130,000 
and by 1890 to approximately 165,000. But even this 
crowd of people needed no such fields in which to try 
their prowess. 

A few figures which the "hustlers" placed upon 
property, seem, when considered in this day of sane 
development, beyond belief. The newspapers in 1883 
advertised lots at Lake Calhoun at from $650 to $1,000 
each and acres beyond that lake at $500 each. We 
know that twenty years later they could have been 
purchased at half those prices, since they were as far 
from the real city as Minnetonka is today and without 
anything like its railway service. At the same time 
132 feet on Nicollet and Sixteenth Street was of- 
fered for $15,000 and fifty feet at Sixth Avenue South 
and Tenth Street for $32,000. In one month of 1886 
the real estate sales amounted to $3,000,000. 

Men attended sales of lots, purchased without prov- 
ing the property, then went home boasting of the fact, 
only to discover later that their land was a foot under 
water or otherwise inaccessible. The humorist, Bill 
Nye, tells of trying to locate a lot in one of the lakes. 
Streets were graded, walks and mains laid far out into 
the country, with the same faith on the part of the 
general public, and by the same effrontery of ex- 
ploiters, that inspired the building of mills in the woods 
miles distant from switching accommodations. Money 
in this way passed from buyer to buyer with such sur- 
prising swiftness that Minneapolis was credited with 



98 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

thirty-eight millionaires — a number sadly decreased 
in the time of trouble that followed this wild expansion 
as surely as the night the day. During this over-ex- 
pansion the people were being told that there was ''no 
boom" that there could be "no limit to the rise." It 
seems in this calmer day hard to understand why they 
believed it. 

Two Typical Colonels. The difference in spirit be- 
tween the eighties and the fifties is fairly well typi- 
fied by the difference in character between Colonel 
William King and Colonel John H. Stevens. Both 
of these men were enthusiasts, both versatile in their 
interests ; in a sense both were boomers. But whereas 
Stevens had the energy of a friend to try to bring 
every citizen into the proper relationship with every 
other citizen, to give his scanty means and great heart 
to every cause that proposed a better community, 
King had the energy of the promoter to "put Minneap- 
olis on the map." His hustling newspapers, the Atlas, 
first, and then the Tribune, his great stock farm called 
Lyndale, now partly owned by the Park Board, and his 
"big fairs" — all were examples of this energy. The 
last of these fairs was held in 1878 and the grounds 
along Twenty-seventh Avenue South then platted into 
lots. It was especially representative of the man for 
it included among its many unique features, "Maud S," 
the fastest trotting mare, the women's twenty-mile 
running race with five contestants upon good 
mounts, a "mammoth" balloon and other attractions 
which a writer in a recent paper says "only the famous 
Minneapolis showman could possibly have collected 
and brought to the then village of 40,000." 

The Street Railways. This period is marked, too, 
by the development of street-railways. July 1st, 1875, 
the city granted a franchise to a company of which 



BOOM TIMES 99 

William King and Thomas Lowry were the leaders. It 
permitted them to operate two lines, one to extend 
from Fourth Avenue North to Hennepin, along that 
street and Central Avenue to Fourth Street Southeast, 
thence to Fourteenth Avenue, to be completed in four 
months ; the other from Plymouth Avenue, along 
Washington Avenue to Twelfth Avenue South, thence 
by the best route to Franklin. September 2nd the 
first car ran over the "University route" and collected 
$21.50 before night. 

We find the adventures on this line very amusing 
to read about. There was no certainty that 
the little one-horse car would stay on the track more 
than a block or so, and often the passengers were called 
upon to help put it back. In the winter when they 
alighted they had to brush from their clothing some 
of the straw which the thoughtful company had pro- 
vided for keeping feet warm. The driver of the horse 
was conductor as well, reminding his forgetful pas- 
sengers by ringing a bell, that they had not put their 
nickels in the slot. An evil-smelling oil lamp gave 
forth a sickly light to enable those inside to distinguish 
each other, and two bulls-eye colored signal lamps on 
each end warned those outside that the car was mov- 
ing, however cautiously. In spite of these humors of 
the carline, however, it did serve to bind together 
the east and west divisions of the city and to suggest 
what might be clone towards furnishing the people 
with transportation. 

In the next ten years the service was extended and 
improved to win the nickels of the thousands pouring 
into the city. Before 1889 lines were in operation on 
Hennepin and Hawthorne Avenues, on Western Ave- 
nue, on First, Fourth and Eighth Avenues South, 
on Washington and Riverside Avenues, and northeast 



100 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

on Central Avenue and Monroe Street. The small 
incommodious cars had given way to what seemed in 
comparison comfortable palaces. 

The "Old Motor." In 1878 began the con- 
struction of what is known as the "motor line." 
This was promoted by Col. William McCrory, of Co- 
lumbus, Ohio, aided by some local capitalists. First 
of all this company constructed a line from Lake Cal- 
houn to the city limits at Twenty-fourth Street, and 




THE MOTOR 
From "A Half Century of Minneapolis" 

obtained the right to operate its trains along Nicollet 
and First Avenues to First Street. The "motor" was 
a small locomotive boxed in to muffle its noise and -to 
avoid frightening the horses. The summer cars were 
long and narrow with seats extending entirely across 
and a running board for the conductor along the side ; 
the winter cars resembled the present street railway 
equipment. 

Imagine yourself a clerk in a down-town store 



BOOM TIMES 101 

at inis time. To obtain a seat you rushed down 
to Nicollet and First Street where the fussy motor, 
having just hauled its train from the lake, was switch- 
ing around. You got a place and were soon boom- 
ing along to First Avenue and by the present Nicollet 
Avenue route to the hill beyond Franklin. Then 
something stuck; the engine stopped, snorted a few 
times, and had to back down for a new start. Up it 
toiled again, finally creeping on over the rise to the 
open country. At Thirty-first Street it turned and 
carried you along to Lake Calhoun without more ado. 
On Sundays it had the grace to stop at Eighth Street 
so as not to disturb the church services. 

Westward Ho! The ambitious McCrory, like 
the factory men, saw visions. He extended his line 
in 1881 to Excelsior, over a route that the present 
Minnetonka cars follow except for a few divergencies. 
Just west of the city limits and a few rods south of 
the present track a quarter of a mile of the old grade 
is to be seen. Locomotives hauled the trains to Lake 
Calhoun where the "motors" were substituted for the 
journey through the city. It took eighty minutes to 
reach Excelsior from the center of the city and cost 
one dollar in the winter and seventy-five cents in the 
summer, for a round trip. Along the line land values 
were nearly as high as they are at present and addi- 
tions were platted far beyond any hope of settling 
them. A few people indeed moved out upon these 
plats but there was little real development. They 
soon found themselves marooned in the woods ; for 
in 1887 the Minneapolis street railway swallowed its 
competitors and abandoned the Minnetonka line. 
Then the "parks" were fields and pastures again until 
their proper time arrived. 

The "motor" company reached Minnehaha Falls by 



102 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

a line from the "Junction" at Nicollet and 31st to 37th 
Street, on that to Fort Avenue parallel to the Milwau- 
kee tracks. The writer remembers visiting Minneap- 
olis in 1889 and enjoying two treats — one a trip over 
this motor line. At the "Junction" was a large num- 
ber of cars each labeled "Minneapolis, Lyndale and 
Minnetonka," and he remembers asking why they did 
not go to Minnetonka. Then we left on our Falls train 
through the open country and beautiful woods, instead 
of past the grocery stores as one has to go now. 

The First Electric Line. The other treat was the 
ride on the first electric line to be operated in the city, on 
Fourth Avenue. This was installed after a furious con- 
test in the city council in which aldermen were split 
by rival organizations into two hostile camps. The 
Anderson & Douglas company sought to enter the in- 
viting territory which a cable line on First Avenue 
would tap ; and the Minneapolis Street Railway Com- 
pany headed by Thomas Lowry, ably seconded by 
Martin B. Koon, his attorney, fresh from its financial 
conquest of the motor company, determined to keep 
out all competitors. The Tribune supported the street 
railway company while the Journal kept reminding the 
latter that it could not call its right to operate cars 
upon the public streets worth over $4,000,000 and still 
complain that it had done more for the city than the 
city had done for it. Finally upon the holding com- 
pany's offer to build three cable lines besides the one 
on First Avenue, to experiment on one street with the 
new electric power and furnish a bond signed by 
prominent citizens as surety for the deed, the Ander- 
son & Douglas proposition was rejected. Then the 
victorious company made its experiment which proved 
so successful that neither jerky cable cars nor smoky 
motors were ever afterward wanted by anyone. 



BOOM TIMES 103 

The Street Railway and the City. The further ex- 
tension of the street railways will be discussed later. 
It is sufficient to emphasize here the fact that the 
various lines if they did encourage the boomer, at the 
same time made the congestion of the city impossible. 
As a result Minneapolis developed no slum district. 
On the other hand poor people were enabled to go 
out into the open country and live cleanly and decent- 
ly. Besides this the solid business interests were 
greatly served and the various parts of the city were 
so knitted together that there was neither north nor 
south nor east nor west; but just one cosmopolitan 
Minneapolis stretching forward to accomplishment. 

A City Built Upon a Rock. If we have been free to 
criticize this boom time, it has been with no desire to 
underrate the real business spirit that breathed its 
way into the very midst of turmoil and confusion. In 
fact let us say again that without this spirit the Min- 
neapolis which we know would not have been. Side 
by side with the exploiter worked the conservator ; 
that is why, when the hard times came, the city itself 
showed no empty husks from which the fruit had been 
extracted. It was such conservatism that sought to 
rebuke the greed of speculators and keep business of 
all kinds on a safe basis. A hint of it that is as good 
a text for today as it was for the eighties was 
given by Assessor Plummer, who asked that streets 
be placed on grade and the lots marked before plats 
were accepted. Said he, "let them make their property 
recognizable from the adjacent prairie and accessible 
before asking the city to recognize and improve it and 
before inviting people to make homes upon it." To 
be sure some stores became vacant in the outlying 
districts but none of the great industries and few of 
the banks were forced to suspend their operations. 




NG TERRITORIAL EXTENSION 



106 



THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 



The great state went on growing its grain and trees, 
and asking for supplies ; the great city went on mak- 
ing flour and lumber and machinery and furniture and 
a hundred other things that the farmers were calling 
for. The city was built, not upon sands of uncertain 
speculation, but upon the solid rock of credit — a credit 
that was rooted in boundless resources. 




THE "OLD MAIN" UNIVERSITY BUILDING 



CHAPTER VI 

BOOM TIMES— A CITY INDEED 

Some Good Buildings. The boom period shows 
some of its phases in the construction of buildings. 
In his message of January, 1889, Mayor Ames pointed 
out that the value of the building permits issued in 
the year just closed was $10,000,000. In twenty years 
Minneapolis shook off the village and put on the 
metropolis. Its wooden shacks were replaced by such 
structures as the Guaranty Loan (now Metropolitan 
Life), New York Life, Lumber Exchange, Chamber 
of Commerce, West Hotel, Exposition, Public Library, 
Young Men's Christian Association, by the Syndicate 
and Glass Blocks, by beautitui churches and commo- 
dious schools, and toward the end of the period by the 
construction on the site of the old Union, afterwards 
Washington School, of the great Court House, the 
chimes of which have reminded the citizens of the 
beauty as well as of the usefulness of labor — typical 
of Minneapolis. These structures were built plainly 
and substantially so that they fit into the general plan 
of a larger and better city without marring that plan. 

History repeats itself even within the brief span of 
a western city. In 1883, Minneapolis was proud of 
her new Union Station, which united effort on the 
part of her citizens had made possible. The same 
year the need of a Third Avenue Bridge was agitated. 
Add to these facts the motor line to Minnetonka and 
the interest in outlying plats and we have the list of 
subjects that is concerning the city in 1913. 




THE COURT HOUSE AND CITY HALL 
BEGUN IN 18S7 FINISHED IN 1909 



BOOM TIMES A CITY INDEED 109 

The Minneapolis Exposition. The building in 1886, 
of the Exposition Hall that is now used as a stock- 
food factory, is another proof of the solidity of the 
city, even if the project could not be made to pay. It 
was an attempt to gather under one roof a fair show 
of Minneapolis products and to give the people the 
education of a good art gallery. Nothing was left un- 
done to make this feature complete. Care was taken 
also to entertain the crowd with various devices, in- 
cluding the aquarium in the building and the great 
spectacle of fireworks without. An elaborate model 
of the cliff-dwellers' homes was both entertaining and 
instructive. For six years in the great auditorium 
elaborate band concerts drew large crowds from all 
over the northwest. Then a failure of crops with the 
consequent tightening of the money-market and the 
great interest taken in the World's Fair at Chicago 
made it impossible to continue the Exposition. The 
building was afterwards used for a city auditorium, 
especially for the' great Mills evangelistic meetings in 
1892, until the present owners purchased it. 

A Traveler's Description. Joaquin Miller's enthu- 
siasm may smack of the press, but his notes are never- 
theless very suggestive : "Away up toward the fur- 
ther end of the city, standing where the golden wheat 
stood less than a decade ago, is the Public Library. 
Another great grey citadel is named the Chamber of 
Commerce, and still another fortress, the Lumber 
Exchange — what strange new names in the strange 
new city, 7,000 miles from Moscow. 

Thirty-seven years ago the Swedish authoress, 
Frederika Brenna, said : 'This place has a population 
of two hundred, but it will surely in a few years have 
ten times that number, for its situation is as remark- 
able for beauty and healthfulness as it is for trade.' 



MAP OF 

MINNEAPOLIS 

PAf\K -SYSTEM 

AS RECOMMENDED BY 

PROF. H.W.S. CLEVELAND. 
1883. 




BOOM TIMES A CITY INDEED 111 

I found here the longest unbroken, unbent avenue in 
the world. It is 15 miles long and 120 feet wide and 
as straight as a rule can make it. It is called Univer- 
sity Avenue." 

Beginnings of the Park System. This time of ex- 
citement is marked, also, by a real interest in parks. 
A few men had tried to save Nicollet Island, the com- 
mon resort of the St. Anthony and the Minneapolis 
people in the days before they united— in fact a move 
to purchase it had been lost by only 66 votes in 1867. 
The failure to acquire this beautiful tract for the city 
was a matter of deep regret — a regret that we find 
echoed constantly in the years that followed. In the 
seventies, when the young city had been struggling to 
improve in every possible way, the papers had con- 
tinually urged that other resorts be kept free from 
commercialism. The Evening Mail had said in 1874: 
"Every year the subject (of a park) comes up and is 
discussed for a time and then allowed to drop. The 
prospect of securing it grows fainter." 

The mistake had been made of expecting too 
much of the wide areas left for recreation and the 
numerous beauty-spots where there had been as yet 
no demand for buildings. Charles M. Loring and 
C. A. Nimmocks were the first men in public life to 
emphasize the necessity of controlling the natural 
resorts and of beautifying the city by parks before 
the land became too valuable. Both men gave them- 
selves to the service of the Park Board for many 
years. In 1867 Loring favored a project to get a 
park at Franklin Avenue, but it was defeated. Final- 
ly, in 1883, Prof. H. W. Cleveland was called to Min- 
neapolis to suggest to the city how it could best 
organize its scenic beauties into a comprehensive 
park system. 



112 



THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 



Following his visit, through an act of the legis- 
lature, the Park Board was organized. It began im- 
mediately to acquire property. Dr. Elliott presented 
a part of his homestead and Edward Murphy some 




lots, which became respectively Elliott and Mur- 
phy parks. Before the eighties became history, 
the old pest-house grounds, sometimes called "nig- 
ger hill," had been converted into beautiful Far- 
view. Johnson's Lake had become Central Park (now 



BOOM TX1V1ES A CITY INDEED 113 

Loring Park), and several smaller plats, including 
Franklin Steele Square, Market Square, Riverside 
Park and Hawthorne Park had been set aside. In the 
latter part of the period Stinson Boulevard on the east 
side, and Calhoun, Harriet, Lake of the Isles and Ken- 
wood Boulevards were constructed. The Journal re- 
ported in 1887 that the city had 120 acres of parks 
and 19 miles of boulevards. That less than ten years 
■in a wild time of money-making could bring about 
this accomplishment is another proof of the solidity of 
Minneapolis, as well as a monument to the men who 
fostered the park idea. 

Extension of Utilities. All the city departments 
as well as the utility companies were pressed to the 
utmost to improve the property that boomer and 
street car and park had thrown upon the market. 
In 1875 the city owned one steam fire engine, a hand 
engine and two hose carts — and was proud of it. Four 
years later the Volunteer Fire Department was 
formally thanked for its years of faithful service and 
ushered out, the city taking upon itself the whole 
responsibility of fire protection. 

The record of street grading, of main laying and 
of paving as printed from time to time in the news- 
papers is a notable one. As early as 1875, $57,300 
was spent in street grading and four years later the 
whole tax levy was nearly $275,000, or about five 
dollars per inhabitant. In 1889, 37 miles of sidewalk, 
of which two-thirds were plank, were laid and 108 
miles ordered for 1890. From 1883, when the first 
paving was put down on Bridge Square, until 1890, 
30 miles, chiefly of cedar blocks and granite pave- 
ment, were laid at a cost of nearly a million dollars 
or about ten dollars per person, and the wistful guess 
of the editor of the Tribune in 1875 that "sometime we 



114 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

shall pave Nicollet, Hennepin and Washington Av- 
enues, at least in the center of the city," had been 
more than justified. 

Seventy-five miles of curb and gutter were set at 
a cost of about five dollars per person. The city 
added as many miles of sewers, the cost of which is 
not noted in the engineer's reports, except for the 
year 1889, when about half a million dollars' worth 
of sewer work was done. One hundred fifty miles 
of water mains had been laid up to 1890, most of them 
since 1885. 

In 1884 the area of the city was 24 square miles ; 
in 1885, 33 square miles, and in 1888, 53^ square 
miles. At the same time Kansas City had an 
area of 11, Milwaukee of 18, and even Detroit of only 
22. That such an enlargement of our territory was 
wise is a debatable question, even if by it we did shut 
off the formation of slums, since the cost of stretch- 
ing the various arteries of city benefit to outlying 
districts was very high. That the city could manage 
it and still sell its bonds at a premium is another 
proof of the soundness of its foundation. 

The Rivalry of the Twins. St. Paul had, of course, 
prospered during this boom period ; and as certainly 
as her business increased did her scouts explore the 
wilds for fresh additions to her territory. Kittsondale. 
Hamline, Merriam, Desnoyer and St. Anthony Parks 
were in turn taken into the city, whose empire was 
stayed in its western course only by the ''City Limits" 
sign of Minneapolis herself. Over this wide expanse 
of prairie St. Paul stretched long lines of streets and 
sidewalks in an attempt to coax a large population to 
settle the district. In some cases these sidewalks 
ran for blocks where there were no houses at all and 
none for years after. Then St. Paul, like Minneapolis, 



BOOM TIMES A CITY INDEED 115 

anxiously awaited what the census would say of her 
size and greatness. 

We have seen that there was a feeling of bitter- 
ness between the two settlements when the St. An- 
thony Claim Association monopolized all the land in 
the reservation. This feeling was intensified when 
the railways seemed to be building to St. Paul and 
leaving Minneapolis out in the cold. Gradually, as 
both cities received the benefits of the development 
of the northwest, the rivalry had increased and ex- 
treme claims were made as to the relative virtues of 
the cities. St. Paul despised the litter of "Slab-town," 
and Minneapolis disdained the narrow streets of 
"Pig's eye." St. Paul accused Minneapolis of fraudu- 
lently returning population reports in the census of 
1885. Each looked forward to the census of 1890 
with great anxiety lest the other should out-strip its 
opponent. Each was determined that by fair means, 
or otherwise, this calamity should be averted. The 
feeling became very tense. 

On June 17 a deputy I nited States marshal de- 
scended upon seven Minneapolis enumerators and took 
them to St. Paul for trial on the charge of fraudu- 
lently entering names. Four Minneapolis attorneys 
went to defend them, while some prominent citizens 
called a mass meeting of indignation. Resolutions 
were passed disclaiming any intention on the part of 
Minneapolis to commit fraud, and calling for the 
speedy trial of all the accused, and for their punish- 
ment if found guilt\- . At the same time a committee 
of business men scurried about to find every inhabi- 
tant whose name could be added to the roll. Some 
visited factories to secure the names of operators who 
lived in cheap lodging houses and had perhaps been 
missed ; others stood on the street corners interview- 



116 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

ing- pedestrians ; still others went gleaning information 
through the offices and stores. Meanwhile both cities 
awaited the official recount that Superintendent Potter 
of the Census Bureau had ordered. 

The final report was disconcerting to both. In it 
the superintendent said: 

"In all probability there existed a widespread con- 
spiracy for inflating the census of the city (Minne- 
apolis). Families have been swollen to enormous size; 
the capacity of boarding houses has been taxed be- 
yond their limits. St. Paul is as bad." 

The St. Paul papers were chagrined, and one was 
"astounded that the census office has publicly put 
St. Paul in the list of this Jezebel whose dallying with 
sin is the jest and scorn of a whole people." But the 
record was made to stand, that while Minneapolis 
had "padded" to the extent of 20,000 names, St. Paul 
was a sinner to the extent of nearly 10,000. The popu- 
lation of the larger "twin" was large enough for con- 
gratulation, since it showed a gain of 251 per cent in 
ten years. 

Increased School Facilities. During all the excite- 
ment of this boom period the spirit of a better prog- 
ress than is measured by miles of sidewalk was mak- 
ing the Minneapolis of today. The Evening Mail of 
June 13, 1874, reported 3,000 pupils attending school, 
62 of them the high school. Superintendent Touseley 
was assisted by 47 teachers, who were divided among 
the Washington, Jackson, Madison, Franklin, Adams, 
Jefferson and Lincoln Schools, of which the two latter 
have had to retreat before the business demands of 
the city within the last few years. In 1878 it was 
decided to govern all of these schools by a single 
board, whereby greater unity and economy could be 
gained. In 1886 Dr. John Bradley, a man of great 



BOOM TIMES A CITY INDEED 117 

scholarship and of genuine character, was called to the 
superintendency and remained until 1892. Under his 
guidance the North, East and South High Schools 
came into being. Thus every section of the city could 
send its children directly to obtain, not only the edu- 
cation that America has always claimed as a right, 
but that which only the wealthy and the apt could 
have enjoyed a few years before. Moreover, to en- 
courage foreigners and those deprived of the chance 
to attend day school, in 1884 evening schools were 
established, and were attended by 2,500 pupils. A 
little later manual training and sewing, at first re- 
garded as "fads" but now on an equality with class 
room studies, were placed in the course of study. 
That these advantages were appreciated by the city 
at large is proved by the fact that of a population of 
150,000 in 1889, 20,000 were attending school in 46 
buildings under the instruction of 503 teachers. The 
secretary of the board reported that sittings for about 
2,000 additional pupils had to be provided each year. 
The University and Its Presidents. Besides the in- 
crease and improvement of the public schools, the con- 
tinued growth of the University added to the strength 
of Minneapolis. In 1883 President Folwell, who, aided 
by *John Pillsbury and the other regents, had carried 
the institution through the period of "stress and 
storm" and had given it standing and stamina, asked 
to be relieved of the strain that he might devote him- 
self to his class room. So Dr. Cyrus Northrop was 
called from Yale, and until 1911 was the beloved guide v 
of thousands of students who are today making, not 
only Minneapolis, but Minnesota and the nation. 
Under his direction the University was developed into 

*For his work in behalf of the university. John Pillsbury was 
honored by the erection in 1900 of the statue opposite the 
University Librarv building-. 



118 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

one of the greatest in the United States. Colleges of 
pharmacy, dentistry, civil, mining and electrical en- 
gineering were added, a library built up and labor- 
atories established that have made possible the ac- 
curate study without which modern learning is only 
foolish. In. Dr. Folwell, not only for his University 
labors, but for his published studies of Minnesota ; 
in Dr. Northrop, not only for his University labors, 
but for his personal influence exerted on platform and 
in council over the whole United States, and in 
Professor Winchell, the geologist who has laid the 
state an open book before the farmer, miner and manu- 
facturer, the University has contributed an inestima- 
ble service — a service chiefly performed in these days 
of the boom. 

A Real Public Library. iUong with the develop- 
ment of education went as a matter of course the 
ambition to develop a library. The Athenaeum, nobly 
as it had done its work, was inadequate to the de- 
mands of a great city. With its collection of books, 
however, and the legacy left by Dr. Kirby Spencer, 
whose gift has been commemorated by a bronze tablet 
in the main library building, it was a good foundation 
on which the city could build. So, in 1885, after con- 
sent had been obtained from the legislature, the City 
Library Board was organized and permitted to borrow 
$100,000 if private subscriptions to the amount of 
$50,000 could be obtained. This was to be used for 
the proper housing of the Athenaeum books and those 
the new board Avould add from year to year. In 1886 
work was begun on the structure at the. corner of 
Hennepin Avenue and Tenth Street, and in 1889 the 
building, furnished and stocked with 30,000 of these 
books, was opened to the public. Immediately the 
two funds — the Spencer endowment and the public 



BOOM TIMES A CITY INDEED 119 

tax — were available, the one to equip the reference 
department, the other to furnish the more popular 
reading; and thus the library entered into the life 
of the community. 

Interest in Art. The building" was the natural 
home of the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, or- 
ganized in 1883 by Wm. W. Folwell of the University, 
and the Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences, 
organized in 1873. The Minneapolis School of Fine 
Arts, opened by the society in 1886, was given space 
in the building. In 1890 the chief show place of the 
city was this beautiful building with its gallery of 
pictures partly owned by the society and partly loaned 
by citizens. Its museum was also of great value. 
No one who came to Minneapolis in that day could 
go away with the impression that Alinneapolis lacked 
culture. 

Eloquent Preachers. The churches of the city 
shared with the schools and the library in the en- 
thusiasm of the boom. It was extremely fortunate 
that such men as David Burrell (Westminster), 
Charles Thwing (Plymouth), Wayland Hoyt (First 
Baptist), all of whom have since become national 
figures, and Doctors Tuttle and Shutter, who, to- 
gether, span a half century of history for the Church 
of the Redeemer, could come to the city at this time. 
Rev. Henry M. Simmons, since deceased, was the 
center of a group of thinkers at the First Unitarian 
Church for nearly a quarter of a century. These men 
held before the whole population the principles upon 
which life must be founded if it is to be safe. The 
Lutherans were led by M. Falk Gjertsen and Charles 
Petri, the Catholics by such priests as Fathers Christy, 
McGolrick, Kean and O'Reilly, who have been recog- 
nized by their church, for all three have since 



120 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

become bishops. Father Cleary, who is still before 
the people of the city as an ardent advocate of tem- 
perance and reform, did more than his share of faith- 
ful work. Such men could not fail, to have a following- 
planning for a better as well as for a bigger city. 

The "Citizen." One of the evidences of this wide- 
spread interest in religious training is found in "Citi- 
zen,"' a paper started in 1876 to be "relied on for news 
both of the church and secular," and to reflect "the 
better public sentiment of our state and church affairs 
in the northwest." It contained items concerning 
Sunday school work, discussions on the problems of 
crime, temperance notes and school news and criti- 
cisms, besides some book reviews and literary gossip. 
Another is in the publication by the Tribune a few 
years later of a list of the Sunday Schools of the city 
with their average attendance. Indeed, the daily press 
in those days gave a goodly portion of their space 
to reports of church activities, to reviews of sermons 
and discussions of theology. 

Charities — Washburn Home. The work of the 
churches was supplemented by various charitable or- 
ganizations that received a great impetus during the 
eighties. The Associated Charities, to which George 
Brackett and Richard Martin contributed so greatly 
both of their time and money, was organized in 1884, 
and three years later Governor Cadwallader C. Wash- 
burn, of Wisconsin, gave money to build the orphan- 
age that bears his name. Of George Brackett it is 
enough to say that no one has arisen to deny the 
truth of the Journal's statement : "He is always ready 
when a tender hand is needed to smooth a pillow, a 
mind to conceive the best plan for any emergency, or 
a strong arm to push forward any enterprise to benefit 
his city and his fellow men." In this union of am- 



BOOM TIMES A CITY INDEED 121 

bition and charity he typified the spirit of the Minne- 
apolis that was seeking to conquer the wilderness 
and selfishness at the same time. 

Protecting the Young. One of the institutions by 
which Minneapolis has become favorably known 
throughout the world is the so-called Patrol Limit, or 
limit beyond which no saloon can be conducted. The 
lines indicating this limit are necessarily irregular 
since at the time they were drawn several saloons were 
operating at a considerable distance from the center 
of the city. The limits are fixed for the East Side, 
on the north at Twenty-eighth Avenue, on the east 
at Central Avenue, and on the south at Third Avenue 
Southeast ; for North Minneapolis at Twenty-first Av- 
enue, Lyndale Avenue, Eleventh Avenue and Fifth 
Street, and for the rest of the city at Sixth Street, 
the Milwaukee tracks, Franklin Avenue and Twenty- 
sixth Street. These are the extremes; often the lines 
run far inside of these boundaries. Thus a district 1.3 
square miles in extent on the east side of the river 
and 1.4 west of it has been the only territory since 
1883 in which a saloonkeeper could legally do busi- 
ness. *For this reason most of the children of Minne- 
apolis have grown up unaccustomed to the sight of 
the saloon and its attendant evils — an advantage that 
has impressed every visitor to Minneapolis. 

A City Indeed. By 1890, with her factories smok- 
ing on all sides, with her business hustling from build- 
ing to building to gain more space, with her street 
cars daily carrying thousands of citizens out of the 
smoke and turmoil into the green, restful country ; 
with her streets paved and beginning to be lined with 
beautiful buildings, both for trade and residence ; 

*In 1911 the line was allowed to run on Revent-h Street 
for a short distance so as to permit two prominent hotels to 
( i p.duct liars. 



122 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

with the convenience that water and gas and electric 
systems, sewage disposal and telephone service could 
give her people, with three daily papers bringing the 
news of all the world directly to their doors ; with 
schools working day and night, and churches minister- 
ing to all sorts and conditions of mankind ; with busi- 
ness sense, mental alertness and religious fervor, each 
softened by art, Minneapolis could well boast that she 
was a city indeed. 

Some Disasters. And with the city's blessings she 
had to take the city's burden. Some dark tragedies 
came to sadden her life in this period of joyful ex- 
pansion. First of all there was the great explosion 
of 1878, when seven flouring mills were totally de- 
stroyed. On the Washburn-Crosby Mill is a tablet 
which tells the story better than we could relate it : 

"This mill was erected in the year 1879 on the site 
of Washburn Mill A, which was totally destroyed on 
the second day of May, 1878, by fire and a terrific 
explosion of flour dust. Not one stone was left upon 
another, and every person engaged in the mill in- 
stantly lost his life. The following are the names 
of the faithful and well-tried employees who fell vic- 
tims to that awful calamity." 

Then come the names of twenty-two men. 

In 1889 occured the Tribune fire in which seven 
men lost their lives. The Tribune then occupied a 
building directly opposite its present home. At night, 
when the demands of work made it necessary for 
many to be in the building, a fire started and blazed 
too fiercely for these to escape save by jumping. Some 
dropped from the fire escape into the alley, some 
were crushed on the sidewalk. The whole city 
was cast into gloom which even now returns to many 
who remember the terrible night. The Phoenix Build- 



BOOM TIMES A CITY INDEED 123 

ing, named from the bird which, in the old story, rose 
from the ashes, was constructed with the gutted shell 
of the Tribune Building. 

Other disastrous fires were that which destroyed 
the Northwestern Elevator at Washington and Eighth 
Avenue South, in which two firemen were sacrificed ; 
and the great lumber fire of 1891 which raged from 
Fourth Avenue to Thirteenth Avenue Northeast, with 
a heat that made spectators across the river a half 
mile away shield their faces with their coats, and 
that carried timbers aloft like feathers to float and 
drop into fresh building material. The whole section 
between the two avenues mentioned for three blocks 
eastward from the river was swept of lumber mills 
and dwellings. Strange to say, no one was lost in this 
fire, but its scars were visible for more than ten years. 

Besides being troubled by these fires, the city was 
oppressed by two murders in this part of her history, 
each of which made her unwillingly notorious abroad 
— in 1886 the shooting of a street car conductor by 
the Barrett brothers, products of idleness, the gang 
and the saloon ; and in 1894 the even more evil killing 
of a girl for her life insurance by a weak-minded tool 
of the gentleman of fashion,- an idler of another type, 
the infamous Hayward. The deep mystery which sur- 
rounded both of these murders and the skillful legal 
battles which the two trials provoked made them of 
more than passing interest; in fact, suggested prob- 
lems about which serious men liked to argue. But 
for this fact it would be better not even to stir the 
mass of details which the newspapers of the time 
published. In each case the guilty were punished 
and their manner of life rebuked. 

Poor Government During a Large Part of This 
Period. The city was oppressed by a government 



124 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

which preyed upon the public purse rather than served 
the public interest. We have referred to the "street 
car aldermen." Two of these were indicted for steal- 
ing the public money and afterwards sent to Still- 
water. The present type of alderman, anxious to 
give the city his best efforts and studying how to 
do it, was not unknown in the Minneapolis of boom 
days. But busy men believed that they had no time 
to give to routine matters of government, so they 
elected men of small calibre to carry on the business 
of the city. Dr. Alonzo A. Ames, son of the good 
doctor who had served, first, St. Anthony and then 
Minneapolis with conscience as well as ability, was 
mayor in the middle eighties, and attracted to himself 
all the worst elements in the city. We shall speak 
of him more fully in our next chapter. The uncertain- 
ties arising from this excuse for government amounted 
at times to a real tragedy. 

Glimpses of City Life. Despite these unpleasant 
things, the life of the city still went happily on. It 
was a life lived largely out of doors as nature in- 
tended people, especially Minneapolis people, to live. 
The steamer Hattie "plowed the waters" of Lake 
Calhoun (in the early eighties), making connection 
with the motor. On the site of the Pond cabin a 
pavilion rang with the laughter of pleasure seekers. 
Later Lake Harriet began to draw the crowds as it 
does today. Minnetonka became a favorite resort for 
southerners, much as St. Anthony had been before 
the war. At Lake Park (Tonka Bay) pleasure grounds 
were laid out, a great hotel built and plans, made to 
attract thousands of visitors. An association was 
formed in 1880 which promised to make "arrange- 
ments for the recreation of both adults and children. 
In addition to fishing, boating, bathing and excursions 



BOOM TIMES A CITY INDEED 125 

upon the lake, grounds for baseball, croquet and com- 
plete outdoor gymnasium." All parts of this program, 
like those of so many organizations of the boom time, 
were not carried out, but the place was a popular re- 
sort. Lafayette and St. Louis Hotels, one on the 
northern and the other on the southern shore of the 
lake, were also centers of mirth and jollity in this day. 
A good picture of the time is given by the St. Paul 
Globe in speaking of the Hennepin Duocentennial in 
1880: 

"The city of Minneapolis never saw such a day 
as yesterday. The broad avenues were teeming with 
life and every artery of the city pulsed with a glad 
and gleesome feeling." 

The writer gives the order of the parade which 
included General Sherman, Secretary of War (ex- 
Governor) Ramsey, Hon. E. B. and W. B. Wash- 
burne, Ex-Governor Washburne of Wisconsin, Gov- 
ernor Pillsbury, Rev. Mr. Edward Neill (author of a 
historv of Minnesota). These notables, together with 
the mayor and a platoon of police, the city council. 
United States regulars, veterans of the Civil War, 
three companies of Zouaves, Father (now Bishop) 
McGolrick and priests, and various lodges, were 
cheered to the echo as they passed the crowds on their 
way to the University grounds. Here George Brackett 
served refreshments, Cushman K. Davis delivered the 
oration on Father Hennepin, and A. P. Miller read the 
poem of which this is an extract: 
"Here sprung the dual city which shall fill 
The plains for miles and cover every hill ; 
Playmates in childhood, hand in hand they went, 
And grew and loved until their glad youth was spent — 
Around these falls, if we believe the wise, 
The world's great capital shall yet arise." 



126 



THi 



STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 



Two other great occasions remain dear in the mem- 
ory of the city. One was the parade in honor of 
Henry Villard, president of the Northern Pacific, 
under whose direction that railroad was completed to 
the coast in 1883. In September of that year, Min- 




THE VILLARD PARADE IN 1883 



neapolis made jubilee. The memorable procession of 
floats, soldiers, organizations of all descriptions, passed 
through the streets of the city. In the accompanying- 
picture it is seen in progress down "Washington Av- 
enue, a model of a flour-mill leading. In September. 



BOOM TIMES A CITY INDEED 127 

of 1891, a great harvest festival, beginning with im- 
pressive thanksgiving in the old Grand Opera House 
(in the building opposite the Glass Block on Sixth 
Street), and including a great industrial parade, which 
the papers estimated that 300,000 people witnessed, 
made Wm. King a fitting subject for his eloquence. 

And then as the city became more metropolitan 
toward the close of the time we are discussing she 
put on the form and fashion which she believed fitting. 
Her Academy of Music gave way to the Grand Opera 
House, wherein the famous actors and great singers 
of the world were glad to entertain her people. Her 
Silver Grays and Posies gave way to the Charity 
Balls of millionaires, her picnics to more orderly "ex- 
cursions," her sliding youth to organized athletics 
centered about a league baseball team, the University, 
the high schools, and a great roller rink a block long 
at Washington Avenue North and Tenth where every 
sort of person from the skater and his sweetheart to 
the burly prizefighter could be gazed upon by an 
immense crowd. 

A Citizen's Prophecy. This was the city <>f which 
Joaquin Miller wrote in the (New York) Independent: 

"I asked one of the builders of this city, a sort of 
( !aesar,. with the difference that he builds up rather 
than burns down, how long men have been employed 
in building Twincite. 

" 'They have been 48 years/ he answered. 

' 'And how much longer will it take to complete it?' 

' 'Fifty-two years more, we expect that the end of 
a century from the foundation will see it completed.' ' 



PRELUDE TO CHAPTER VII. 

The Symbol of the Bear. Not more than five years 
ago a black bear — to be sure a half-civilized, bedrag- 
gled, travel-worn black bear, but a real one from the 
forest and not an escaped circus performer — was shot 
very near the Minneapolis Union Station. Such an 
occurrence, widely advertised as it was, tends to sup- 
port the delusion of those who have never seen the 
city of the laughing water that it is really a barbarous 
place after all. On the other hand what it should 
prove is that a city with already highly developed 
powers is situated in the midst of a country still await- 
ing development — a city whose achievements are con- 
tinually making prophecies seem foolish. 



CHAPTER VII 

A GREAT CITY (1893-1913) 

Hard Times. The bubble of speculation broke in 
1893, and once again the nation faced hard times. Gold 
disappeared, banks in all parts of the country failed, 
factories closed their doors, merchants lost their trade, 
armies of the unemployed, led by the notorious Coxey 
and other reformers, marched along the railroads. 
Bent on laying its grievances before the government 
in person, one of these armies actually camped on 
the White House grounds and had to be driven off by 
the police. More than one man remembers leaving 
his work at night with a check for a very small amount, 
of going into place after place to get it cashed, and 
finally of having to walk home. In all of the cities 
''bread line" and "soup kitchen" were common terms. 

Minneapolis had to pass through the fog of this de- 
pression. Her boasted thirty-eight millionaires be- 
came poor ; many of her poor became beggars. An 
old credit book in the State Historical Library gives 
the record of men, since able to sign for many figures, 
whose checks were then protested. On some of the 
most promising avenues, particularly Riverside and 
Central, rows of empty stores presented a woebegone 
appearance. In the newer additions empty houses and 
grass-grown sidewalks told the tale of inflation and 
hardship. Property so depreciated in value that peo- 
ple began to smile whenever former prices were men- 
tioned. 

The Dawn of the New Era. For five years this state 
of things continued. Then the gleams of hope began 



130 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

to show through the darkness. The dawn of a great 
city born of a rich territory was at hand. For we 
must always bear in mind the inexhaustible wealth 
of Minnesota and the other states tributary to Minne- 
apolis, when we are explaining" the progress of this 
city. Now for the fourth time this wealth was poured 
out before Minneapolis when she needed it. Unlike 
the youth who, in his ambition to gather riches, forgot 
the sesame and found his treasures turned to leaves 
and stones, and his treasure-house locked upon him, 
Minneapolis was given another chance — a chance 
which she has rightfully used, for she has learned 
the value of the sesame of sane business, and has 
robbed the cave these fifteen years only to find its 
pile rise higher and higher. 

The Prosperity of the Northwest. A few more fig- 
ures will best explain the above passage. From 1890 
to 1900 Minnesota added 400,000 to her population; 
from 1900 to 1910, 300,000. Thus she has nearly 
doubled it since Minneapolis reached the height of 
prosperity in boom times. This addition has been 
chiefly in the northern counties, or at least in the 
central and northern. The southernmost counties 
have held their own, generally speaking. The ad- 
vertisement of the ''cut over" as well as of the prairie 
lands of the central and northwestern, and the great 
increase in the output of the mines in the northeast- 
ern part, have attracted thither crowds of farmers 
and laborers ; and the numbers are multiplying every 
year. During the same time the Dakotas and Montana 
have made a gain in population of over fifty per 
cent, North Dakota, of eighty per cent. 

The consequent gain in production has been tre- 
mendous. The following: table shows what increase 



A GREAT CITY 131 

Minnesota has made, according to the United States 
Census reports for 1900 and 1910 respectively : 

1900. 1910. 

Wheat, bushels 95,000,000 57,000,000 

Corn, bushels 47,000,000 68,000,000 

Barley, bushels 24,000,000 34,000,000 

Hay, "tons 3,000,000 6,000,000 

Hogs, 1,520,000 1,520,000 

Cattle 2,350,000 2,350,000 

Butter, pounds 41,000,000 89,000,000 

Potatoes, bushels 14,000,000 26,000,000 

Forage, tons 7,000,000 14,000,000 

From this table we see that while the production of 
wheat has declined, feeding crops have increased ; and 
that while there is no appreciable increase of cattle 
and hogs, dairy products and potatoes have doubled 
in yield. The value of butter has trebled in the same 
period. North Dakota since 1890 has increased its 
yield of wheat from 26,000,000 to 125,000,000 bushels, 
South Dakota from 16,000,000 to 47,000.000. The lat- 
ter state produces over 50,000,000 bushels of corn a 
year. Both together have doubled their yield of but- 
ter, having produced 13,000,000 pounds in 1900. Mon- 
tana sheared 30,000,000 pounds of wool in 1900, and in 
1910 her wool crop was worth $7,000,000, and the 
value of her horses and cattle was over $50,000,000. 
Montana also produces $7,000,000 worth of silver and 
$36,000,000 worth of copper annually. 

In 1880 Minnesota had no rank as a mining state. In 
1890, with 1,800 men employed, and $8,000,000 invested 
in mines which produced nearly a million tons of ore, 
she was given fifth place in the census reports. Then 
the Vermillion Range was suprising the world. But 
the discoveries in the Mesabi Hills and later still in 
the Cuyuna Range, have put Minnesota into first place 



132 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

with a total yield of over 50,000,000 tons a year. On 
the strength of this vast increase, the villages of 
northern Minnesota have become modern cities, and 
Duluth a city of 80,000 inhabitants. The United 
States Steel Corporation is now erecting in that city 
an immense mill so that it may turn the ore into steel 
as close to the mines as is practicable. 

Lumbering, to be sure, has suffered some decline 
in this period for the simple reason that the best of 
the Minnesota pine has been cut. Some of the greatest 
operators have moved their mills to the Pacific Coast. 
But for all of that Minnesota must still be reckoned 
high among the lumbering states. Annually millions 
of feet of spruce and other pulp woods are being cut 
and made into paper. Her lumber in 1910 was worth 
$42,000,000. 

The Hub of the Wheel. The most fortunate posi- 
tion of Minneapolis in this great area must con- 
stantly be kept in mind. A study of the map of Min- 
nesota and the rest of the territory over which Min- 
neapolis draws her patronage and scatters her favors 
will refresh the memory better than a long descrip- 
tion. First notice that nine great railroads lead to or 
depart from the Twin Cities like the spokes of a 
wheel radiating in all directions, and representing 
40,000 miles of line, seven of these roads connecting 
Minneapolis with Chicago, four extending right 
through the heart of probably the most fertile country 
on earth to the Pacific Coast, three reaching Duluth 
and the great lake and iron district, four tapping the 
wonderful wealth of the Canadian Northwest, and one 
bringing Minneapolis close to the eastern part of 
Canada, New England, and New York. Before an- 
other five years has passed, electric railways radiating 
from the city will make a wheel within a wheel and 



A GREAT CITY 133 

will bring the farms and villages of the more immedi- 
ate territory into hourly communication with the 
metropolis. Already three of these lines are in opera- 
tion, another is almost completed, still another is 
graded and a sixth is being promoted. If all roads 
lead to Rome, can Rome fail to derive the benefit? 

But the railroads are not to be depended on in the 
future as they have been in the past. The great Gov- 
ernment Lock and Dam near the Soldiers' Home will 
make the dream of Minneapolis a reality. She will 
become the head of navigation and her manufacturers 
will take full advantage of the cheap freight rates 
afforded by water transportation. The city has al- 
ready acquired land below the Washington Avenue 
Bridge for wharves and warehouses, so that it can 
guarantee this advantage forever. 

"Made in Minneapolis." Of all the industries of the 
empire thus served, Minneapolis is the direct bene- 
ficiary. How much she owes to the country at her 
back door is best explained by a table showing the in- 
crease in her chief manufactures — those whose value is 
now over a million dollars each, since 1890: 

1890 1900 1910 

Flour $36,278,000 $78,670,000 

Barrels. 1,149,000 1,532,000 

Furniture 1,317,000 1,651,000 

Lumber and 
Lumber Prod- 
ucts 10,500,000 $14,647,000 11,508,000 

Machine and Ma- 
chine Products 1,787,000 7,241,000 

Cars and Repairs 3,778,000 4,309,000 

Clothing 619,000 1,611,000 

Printing and 

Publishing 2,818,000 6,478,000 



134 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

Liquors 1,508,000 2,171,000 

Confectionery . 335,000 1,072,000 

Patent Medicines and Drugs.... 344,000 1,391,000 

Linseed Oil and Cake 3,270,000 11,000,000 

Mills in Minneapolis and vicinity. 

Bread and Bakery Goods 1,370,000 3,605,000 

The Flour Trade. During the past twenty years the 
mills have amply justified Minneapolis in calling her- 
self the "Flour City" of the world. To be sure the 
lean years 1892, 1893 and 1894, kept the production of 
flour close about the 9,000,000 barrel mark; then it 
slowly climbed to 13,000,000 in 1897, since which year 
it has gone as high as 16,000,000, and never under the 
1897 record. Three great groups of mills make the 
bulk of this flour, but altogether 23 separate mills are 
turning out an average of nearly 90,000 barrels a 
working day. Of this over 1,000,000 barrels a year are 
still exported, although the constantly increasing de- 
mand in America tends to lessen the export trade. 
The machinery that grinds and bolts this flour has 
been so improved and adjusted that only 2,000 men 
are needed to handle this immense output — that is 
to say each man makes and packs an average of 
45 barrels a day. 

The Lumber Trade. As has been said, the lumber 
industry in Minnesota is on the decline ; and hence 
Minneapolis cuts less and less logs as the years go by. 
In 1890 about 350,000,000 feet were cut. This was aug- 
mented in the next ten years to over half a billion, 
and in that figure the city reached the climax of her 
career as a lumber center. A concrete illustration of 
this decline is the fact that the waste slab-wood which 
citizens used to buy at fifty cents a load and which in 
course of delivery used to litter the streets is now 
worth $2.50 or $3.00 a load. But that the industry 



A GREAT CITY 135 

dies hard is proved by the fact that over 100,000,000 
feet a year are still being piled in the Minneapolis 
yards. 

But although most of the mills themselves have had 
to move away from the city closer to the forests, the 
great lumber companies have found it necessary to op- 
erate their plants from Minneapolis offices. The vari- 
ous sash and door factories, as has been shown, head 
the world in their annual production. Boxes, barrels 
and tubs come sliding down the factory chutes in im- 
mense numbers every year. And as our table shows, 
these lumber products are second only to the flour 
trade. For this reason Minneapolis must still be 
called a "lumber town." It is the largest lumber dis- 
tributing center in the world. 

Machinery. This seems destined to usurp the sec- 
ond place in the list of things "made in Minneapolis" 
before another census. The great plains of Saskatche- 
wan and Alberta together with the farms of the Dako- 
tas and Minnesota will call for a vastly increased out- 
put of farm implements — gas tractors, threshing ma- 
chines, plows and seed drills — which Minneapolis can 
supply. Moreover the opening of the Panama Canal, 
putting the continents of North and South America 
into more frequent and more speedy communication, 
will provide a vast market for much agricultural ma- 
chinery. It can be expected, therefore, that the four- 
fold gain in this branch of manufacturing that has 
been made in the last twenty years will be bettered in 
the next twenty. 

All Needs Supplied. A classification that will show 
in an adequate manner all of the things that are made 
in Minneapolis is very difficult to formulate. Let us, 
however, begin with the products that enter into the 



A GREAT CITY 137 

daily wants of the physical man. We might group 
them as follows : 

Number of Value of Prod- 
Establish- uct in One 

Products ments Year 

Bread and Bakery Goods 100 $3,605,000 

Butter, Cheese and Condensed 

Milk, Cereals 7 675,000 

Packed Meats 4 138,000 

Confectionery, Ice Cream 17 1,072,000 

Malt Liquors 4 2,171,000 

Drugs and Patent Medicines. .. 52 1,391,000 

Tobacco 45 666,000 



Total 229 9,718,000 

Next let ns see how this man is clothed: 

Number Estab- Value of Prod- 
Products lishments ucts 

Hats and Caps 4 $55,000 

Fur Goods 17 511,000 

Knit Goods, Underwear, Sweat- 
ers, etc 4 

Workmen's Outfits, Overalls, 
Mackinaws, etc 11 

Boots and Shoes 2 



1,611,000 



Total 38 $2,177,000 

Minneapolis also contributes many articles that help 
to provide the third necessity of man — shelter. Besides 
the nearly $12,000,000 of lumber and lumber products 
to which 28 sash and door factories contribute a good 
share, there are various other "shelter" industries : 

Number of Estab- Value of Prod- 
Products lishments ucts 

Brick and Tile 9 $157,000 

Artificial Stone 28 261,000 

Marble and Stone Work 10 555,000 

Copper, Tin and Sheet Iron 47 939,000 

Total 94 $1^912^000 



138 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

If we were to step inside anyone of the millions of 
houses and other buildings in the territory tributary to 
Minneapolis probably we should find that the furnish- 
ing had been attended to by Minneapolis dealers : 

Number of Estab- Value of Prod- 
Products lishments ucts 
Furniture and Refrigerators. . . 23 $1,651,000 
Gas and Electric Fixtures 7 75,000 

Total 30 $1,726,000 

Or we could easily discover articles which the fol- 
lowing list includes : 

Number of Estab- Value of Prod- 
Products lishments ucts 

Jewelry 8 $156,000 

Leather Goods 14 923,000 

Paper Goods, Boxes, Special- 
ties, etc 5 204,000 

Total 27 $1,293,000 

And we could not fail to notice in the books, adver- 
tising pamphlets, papers and periodicals on the table, 
the result of the Minneapolis energy in printing and 
publishing : 

Number of Estab- Value of Prod- 
Products lishments ucts 

Printing 216 $6,478,000 

Stereotyping and Electrotvping 3 52,000 

Photo Engraving " 5 204,000 

Total 224 $6,734,000 

Suppose it is a farm house that we have been visit- 
ing — then in the yard we should probably see the 
trade-mark of some one, if not more of the 23 wagon 
and carriage factories of the city, which are turning 
out a product of over $500,000; and in the machine- 
shed the gas tractor, threshing machine, plow or seed 



A GREAT CITY 139 

drill, brightened by paint made of linseed oil from 
Minneapolis— a part of the great annual shipment 
of 95 foundry and machine shop enterprises. They 
amount to nearly $8,000,000 in value, and many of 
the patterns are made by five firms at a value of 
$42,000. We should find in the stable packages of 
Minneapolis stock foods, and in this day of labor-sav- 
ing on the farm as well as in the city, we should find 
here and there electric machinery bearing the stamp 
of Minneapolis where 8 firms produce annually a 
value in this product of nearly half a million dollars. 

Added to the number of concerns that we have clas- 
sified, there are 6 companies making surgical ap- 
pliances to the value of $666,000 annually, 3 car repair- 
ing shops, which together produce nearly $5,000,000 
worth of work in a year, 3 bag factories with an annual 
product of nearly $1,000,000, 12 cooper shops add- 
ing $1,532,000 more and 262 smaller enterprises mak- 
ing everything down the alphabet from aluminum 
ware and asbestos to weather-strips and whitewash, 
still further increasing the amount by $40,000. 

In all, then, the 1,102 industrial establishments of 
Minneapolis produce annually $165,405,000 worth of 
goods. They buy raw material for $120,000,000 and 
they pay in wages and salaries $23,000,000. Their 
total capital is $90,000,000. 

Goods Sent Far and Wide. In a circular entitled 
"Minneapolis as a Manufacturing Center" compiled for 
the public schools by the Civic and Commerce Asso- 
ciation, we are informed that Minneapolis now em- 
ploys 40,000 of her 325,000 people to produce annu- 
ally $548 worth of goods for every person in the city. 
The city consumes only 10 per cent of this product — 
the other 90 per cent finds its w r ay into all parts of the 
world. Says that circular further : 



140 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

"Gas tractors, made in this city are drawing plows 
across the prairies of far-off Siberia, South America 
and of many countries of Europe as well as in the rap- 
idly developing American and Canadian northwest. 
Minneapolis threshing machines are threshing the 
grain grown in these far-off fields and mill machinery 
made here grinds it into flour. The flour is placed 
in sacks made in Minneapolis and finally makes its 
way into the homes of consumers in collapsible gro- 
cer's boxes which are manufactured here. People all 
over the United States protect themselves against 
the cold of winter and resist the heat of summer with 
Minneapolis made under-garments. One firm clothes 
2,000,000 children a year. Blankets, stockings, sweat- 
ers, caps and other similar products accompany the 
under-garments to distant cities. The world buys Min- 
neapolis macaroni, breakfast cereals, and blends of 
coffee. Minneapolis bread and ice cream are used in 
towns as far west as Butte, Montana. Ornamental 
light standards and other iron work, and art glass have 
been highly developed by Minneapolis dealers. Be- 
sides this the city is selling automobile trucks, wagons 
and other vehicles and implements to customers about 
the world. Two other industries in which Minneapolis 
excels are linseed oil and sash and door work. It has 
attained a prominent rank for furniture manufacture 
and nearly every sort of household and office equip- 
ment is made in this city. The city is the greatest 
primary fur market and has few rivals in the produc- 
tion of finished garments which find their way into 
thousands of cities." 

New Power Plans. For this manufacturing the 
Falls of St. Anthony cannot furnish all the power. In- 
deed the flour mill, electric light and street-railway 
companies have had to install great steam-engines and 



A GREAT CITY 141 

turbines to second the labors of the water. But of the 
nearly 90,000 horse powers needed to produce this great 
pile of Minneapolis goods, the falls still supply a third. 
St. Croix Falls, forty miles away have been compelled 
to put their shoulder to the great wheel of Minneapolis 
manufacturing. Over a great cable, comes the electric 
current with a generating capacity of 15,000 kilowatts, 
20,000 horse powers, to be switched where the company 
wills to make light or heat or power. With the com- 
pletion of the high dam in the river, 40,000 horse- 
powers more will be available ; and when the Coon 
Creek and other up-river projects are completed an- 
other 40,000 will be offered. This does not by any 
means exhaust the possibilities of power for Minne- 
apolis. Experts assert that both the Mississippi and 
St. Croix are capable of developing thousands of horse 
powers, the work of procuring which has not yet been 
begun. In time this immense amount of power will 
be transmitted to Minneapolis manufacturing plants. 
We must remember, too, that great coal ships are con- 
tinually dumping their loads at the Duluth docks 
whence an efficient train service over four trunk lines 
bring it to Minneapolis. Besides this, hundreds of 
gas-engines are working away in the smaller establish- 
ments. So by means of direct water-power, electric 
current, steam and gas these articles of which we have 
been speaking are being "made in Minneapolis." 
The Greatest Primary Wheat Market In the World. 
Closely connected with the flour trade is that of 
grain. It would indeed be strange were Minneapolis 
not a grain center, situated as she is at the very en- 
trance to almost measureless harvest fields of the 
territory to which repeated reference has been made. 
We have said that she is the greatest primary wheat 
market in the world. About 150,000.000 bushels of 



142 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

grain, or considerably over twice the amount received 
in 1891, arrived at Minneapolis in 1911. Of this two- 
thirds was wheat. In 1912, 113,000,0C0 bushels of 
wheat were received, 20,000,000 of barley, 6,500,000 
of flax, a large part of which was made into 
linseed oil. In 1913 nearly 200,000,000 bushels of all 
kinds of grain, 90,000,000 bushels of wheat alone, were 
received. To handle this grain the railroads are forced 
to exert every energy, and even then the yards are 
often blockaded. Over half a thousand members of the 




A GREAT MINNEAPOLIS ELEVATOR 



Chamber of Commerce daily hang upon the market- 
reports, and anxiously follow the crop conditions 
throughout the growing season. Fifty great elevators 
with a capacity of 40,000,000 bushels stand ready to 
take care of the grain flood that pours upon the city 
when the threshing begins, to clean and to ship it on 
to points where it enters into the daily bread of mil- 
lions of people. This industry alone would mark 
Minneapolis among the cities. 

Testing Wheat. The value of various grades of 



A GREAT CITY 143 

wheat for flour making is tested by a chemical process 
introduced in 1886 by A. W. Howard. Good bread 
is thus guaranteed in the laboratory bakery before the 
flour is sold. 

Wholesale Trade. The wholesale trade of Minneapo- 
lis has prospered with these varied interests. Her deal- 
ers in store goods are on the track of every citizen of a 
thousand towns scattered over the great northwest. 
From the total recorded in the last chapter of this 
book — $60,000,000 — this jobbing trade has climbed in 
twenty years to the grand total of $300,000,000 annu- 
ally. That is to say that while the city has doubled 
in population in twenty years its wholesale trade has 
increased five fold. In one month the city has shipped 
out over 100,000,000 pounds of goods. 

New Retail Streets. With the retail business the 
same can be said. To give point to the remark it is 
only necessary to show the great changes that have 
taken place in the retail districts. By 18^2 Washing- 
ton Avenue had been forced to give up its leadership, 
as Bridge Street had before, and Nicollet had be- 
come the unchallenged retail street. At that time 
Hennepin was the home of some office blocks, whole- 
sale houses and restaurants, in addition to the West 
Hotel. The cross streets beyond Third were similarly 
occupied, but only between Hennepin and Marquette 
Avenue. Less than ten years ago began the for- 
ward movement that has now made, not alone Hen- 
nepin, but Marquette Avenue (First Avenue South), a 
distinctively retail street ; and besides, has plentifully 
distributed various kinds of business along all of these 
cross streets as far west as Tenth, and southward to 
Third Avenue. At the close of the boom period the 
necessary residence district feeders were ; on the North 
Side, Sixth, Plymouth, Twentieth Avenues, together 



A GREAT CITY 145 

with Washington ; on the East Side, Central Avenue as 
far as Twenty-fifth ; on the South Side, Nicollet, 
Fourth, Cedar, Riverside, Washington and Franklin 
Avenues. These, as we have indicated, all suffered 
during the hard times. But since 1897 every available 
building on these streets has been in demand and in 
addition, splendid new brick and concrete blocks have 
largely rilled the spaces left by the boomers. New 
arteries have been opened — notably Lake Street, which 
now presents almost a continuous double row of busi- 
ness buildings from the Mississippi to Lake Calhoun, a 
distance of more than four miles. Flennepin, too, as 
far as Thirty-first Street, three miles beyond Washing- 
ton Avenue, is rapidly rilling in with stores. These 
stores closely imitate the down-town business-houses 
in window display, and in service, so that there is 
nothing of the village corner-grocery air left in all of 
the length and breadth of the city. 

Advance in Banking. The great pulse of a city is 
its banking ability. The development of Minneapolis 
in this department of her life is especially marked. To 
obtain an idea of what this means one has only to com- 
pare such quarters as the Center Block, now being 
torn down, with the present quarters of the larger 
banks. To match these are numbers of fine buildings 
now occupied by other banks even outside the "Wall 
Street" district. But the tale of this progress is told 
much better in the record of bank clearings which now 
amount to $5,000,000 a day. This, again, is reinforced 
by tremendous gain in the capital and deposits of the 
banks. Today twenty-two institutions of Minneapolis 
have a combined capital of over $8,000,000 and a total 
deposit of over $1,125,000,000. These are closely re- 
lated, on the one hand with the rural banks of the 
northwest, which have increased from 400 to 1,100 in 



146 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

ten years, and on the other with the great financial 
centers of the United States — a fact that has resulted 
in two things. The first is the keen interest which 
the bankers are taking in the resources of Minnesota 
and the relation of education to the development of 
these resources. They are determind that the rural 
schools shall foster a zeal for agriculture and make 
efficient farmers of their pupils — a task impossible 
heretofore. Hence the educators who have long plead- 
ed for such an advance movement are being supported 
by the men who largely determine how money shall 
be. spent. A second result is a tendency of the financial 
interests through their connection with the public 
utility companies to exert too powerful an influence on 
city government — a tendency which the people at 
large, represented by their councilmen, are combat- 
ting. 

Growing Property Values. A great index to the 
growth of the city in the past twenty years is the real 
estate business. This business learned the lesson of 
the early nineties so well that it has conducted itself 
on a safe and sane basis in the years that have since 
elapsed. Despite the fact that five hundred dealers 
are busily engaged in pushing various projects, despite 
the fact that "Dales" and "Heights" and '"Parks" and 
"Groves" and other more or less sentimentally named 
additions, are being marketed in every direction for 
a distance of eight miles from the center of the city, 
there has never been an attempt to inflate values sim- 
ilar to that which brought disaster to many men. In- 
stead, real estate is lower in Minneapolis than in the 
average city. But values near the center of the city 
have steadily risen since the crash, until they have 
exceeded the prices obtained in the eighties. The dif- 
ference is that now the city has behind it the resources. 



148 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

and ahead of it the demand, that justifies such prices. 
Business property in the downtown district is held at 
from $1,000 to $1,800 per foot. On the other hand resi- 
dence property for people of moderate incomes can be 
obtained at an average price of $700 a lot. three miles 
from the center. On the very edge of the city larger 
lots that sold for $1,000 in boom times can still be 
purchased at that figure, with fine street car service 
and other improvements now realized, but once the 
boomer's idle dream. Over 400 acres were platted in 
1911. In the last ten years the annual number of per- 
mits has increased from a little more than 3,000 to over 
6,000, with a corresponding increase of value. In the 
same period real estate sales have more than doubled 
and now reach to $25,000,000 a year. 

Bringing the People to the City. The street car has 
been the great aid of the real estate man. Lines to 
Robbinsdale, to St. Louis Park, to Fort Snelling, to 
Columbia Heights, to Lake Minnetonka points, to 
Northfield and to Anoka, besides extensions and new 
lines within the city have made it convenient for work- 
ing people to move away from the crowded business 
center out into the open country where many find it 
easy to obtain the comforts of the farm — garden truck, 
fruit, poultry products and pure milk — in addition to 
those of the city. 

The people are taking advantage of opportunities 
thus offered them and thus are extending the city far- 
ther and farther out, filling the gaps to be sure, but 
still leaving room to breathe. From far out in the coun- 
try come hundreds of laborers to counter, desk or 
bench every morning. Closer to the city various settle- 
ments have sprung into being within the past ten years 
— settlements separate from the jurisdiction of the 
city, yet as much parts of its life as though there 



A GREAT CITY 149 

were no such shadowy thing as a boundary line. Thus 
from 10,000 to 15,000 newcomers every year find lodg- 
ment under the protection of the city of the laughing 
water. 

Taking the City to the People. To show what the 
city itself has done to serve these people let us quote 
a few figures from the engineer's report for 1912, giv- 
ing the total miles of permanent improvements. 

Miles of streets paved 171.20 

Miles of sewers laid 300. 

Miles of water main 465.2 

Miles of curb laid 488.54 

In 1911 the city laid over 30 miles of sidewalks and 
in 1912 nearly 50 miles. Besides these improvements 
we must remember the bridges that our great river, 
our creeks and the modern demand for depressed rail- 
way tracks make necessary. In all 470 spans of con- 
crete, stone, iron or wood are in use. The river alone 
is crossed by 11 bridges costing $1,500,000, and this 
sum is nearly equalled by the amount it has taken in 
bridging to protect citizens from railroad trains. We 
must also mention the garbage crematory which be- 
sides disposing of waste in a sanitary manner, has 
proved both that this waste can be utilized to pro- 
duce electric light, and that the city can operate such a 
lighting-plant successfully. The Tenth Ward is light- 
ed by this city crematory. The Water Department 
which is owned by the city, besides paying the cost of 
maintenance has installed a great reservoir system and 
more recently has added to this a filtration plant at a 
cost of $1,000,000. Thus the people are assured plenty 
of clean water at a very low rate. 

The Public Utilities Expand. The privately owned 
utilities — the gas and electric and the two telephone 
companies — have also had great success in this period 



150 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

of real prosperity. The following table shows some- 
thing of this increase: 

Gas Company- 1890 1903 1912 

Miles of main ... 60 426 

Consumers 3,980 58,754 

Electric Company- 
Connected load, .no record h. p. 13,187 h. p. 62,867 
Miles of line. .. .no record no record 469 

Consumers no record 3,203 16,245 

Improvements during 1911 $2,435,000 

Two telephone companies have served the city dur- 
ing this time and have had hard work to keep pace 
with its needs. Now they supply nearly 60,000 tele- 
phones — or one for each family in the city. 

Prosperity has made it possible for these companies 
to erect fine main buildings and branch stations, to in- 
stall modern equipment and devices, materially to re- 
duce their rates to subscribers and still to pay large 
dividends to their stockholders. In fact the stock of 
each of the public utility companies is at a premium 
and the bonds are floated without any difficulty. Such 
a condition is possible only by the reasonable expan- 
sion of a great city. 

How the Parks Meet Modern Needs. Perhaps, 
however, the most interesting of all these extensions 
is that of the park system. The 130 acres of park, 
parkway and water of 1890 had grown by 1912 to 3,686 
of which a third is made up of lakes. The greatest 
territorial development has been along the river, now 
parked on both sides from Washington Avenue to 
Minnehaha, in the newly acquired acreage on the west- 
ern boundary of the city and the linking of the lakes." 
Lake of the Isles and Calhoun are now connected by 
canal making an inland waterway of nearly two miles. 
Cedar will be added to this within a year. Ornamental 



A GREAT CITY 



151 



bridges over the canals, and a great mall extending 
eastward from the union of the two first named lakes 
to Hennepin Avenue, now being constructed, are note- 
worth}- attractions. During these years, too, the 




"Grand Rounds" or city circuit of boulevards and 
parkways has been conceived and all but five miles 
of it finished. When completed a drive of thirty miles 
embracing an unusual variety of park scenery will be 
provided. In addition to the scenic effects thus pro- 



152 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

duced, a great stimulus has been given to out of door 
recreation. This recreation has been encouraged by 
the installation of gymnasium apparatus in the small- 
er parks and the appointment of physical directors to 
train children of all ages in fitting exercises and games. 
Again, the beautiful bath houses, especially at Lake 
Calhoun and at Camden Place, which were patronized 
last year by 200,000 people, are to be mentioned as 
among the finest contributions that a city can make 
to the pleasure and health of its people. We note 
finally that the acquisition during the past three years 
of the old city hall and Center. Block to make a Gate- 
way Park and thus present to the visitor a better view 
of the city than he can get at present; and of the 
Washburn property, Fair Oaks, to form a suitable 
background for the new art museum, are achieve- 
ments that must be marked in the future history of 
the city. 

The City Beautiful. With all of these improve- 
ments by the Park Board, the Minneapolis Civic Com- 
mission is in accord. It has arranged for the. growth 
of the city in all directions. The business of this 
commission is to work for the greater and more 
beautiful Minneapolis that is to be. To this end it has 
had splendid plans prepared to show how public build- 
ings can be made more artistic by proper grouping, as 
well as more convenient of approach from various 
parts of the city, and to point out the advantages of 
diagonals between certain centers, along natural lines of 
travel. These plans the commission has long kept on 
exhibition at its rooms, for the education of citizens. 

Some Notable Parades. Of all the grand proces- 
sions that have crowded Minneapolis streets during 
the past twenty years perhaps four are to be especially 
remembered, since they may be said to be most typi- 



154 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

cal of the Minneapolis spirit. First, in September, 
1899, the return of the Thirteenth Minnesota Regiment 
after nearly two years of service in the Philippines, 
first against Spain, then against insurgent natives, was 
an occasion of great pride for every citizen. The city 
put on its best attire to welcome home its sons. Escort- 
ed by every organization that could furnish a march- 
ing force the soldiers, many the sons of civil war vet- 
erans, passed in review before President McKinley, 
who doffed his hat as captain after captain presented 
his company by military salute. 

In 1906 the Grand Army of the Republic held its 
national encampment in Minneapolis, and the older 
soldiers filled the streets for hours. The city which 
had witnessed the departure of many of them to un- 
certain warfare, cheered them as tho they had just re- 
turned from the conflict ; and they cheered the city 
that represented in so concrete a form the cause ior 
which they fought. 

In 1908 the laying of the cornerstone of the great 
Pro-Cathedral, brought the hosts of Catholicism to 
partake of the greatest religious celebration which the 
city has ever witnessed, including a procession repre- 
senting every phase of the varied activities of that 
great church, religious, educational, institutional. 
Since it foretold the great importance that Minne- 
apolis will be in the future life of the church, the occa- 
sion was distinctly an event to be remembered in the 
history of the city. 

Finally in 1911 the great "Linking of the Lakes" 
celebration, with its week of pageantry, should be re- 
membered, especially for its great industrial parade. 
In this the power, beauty and harmony of the city was 
represented before her people — power through a dis- 
play of machinery, merchandise and marching men ; 



A GREAT CITY 155 

beauty and harmony in the application of her power 
in just proportions, according to the end she has in 
view, as well as in the floats and symbols themselves. 
Thus with a great and ever growing empire behind 
her, Minneapolis is confidently pressing on to a real 
greatness — a greatness founded on fact. Pressing on 
with her factories, her stores and her banks, she is 
satisfying the daily wants of the multitude at her door 
besides serving the nations remote. In this faithful 
service she is proving the old story of the talents, for 
unto her who hath is given even as she gives herself. 



CHAPTER VIII 

A GOOD CITY 

The Home of a Great University. In the midst of 
varied activities Minneapolis has well sustained her 
reputation as a cultural center. The great University 
given to St. Anthony as the least of the three state in- 
stitutions to be parcelled out (St. Paul taking the capi- 
tal and Stillwater the prison) has 7 proved, like the 
leaden casket which the gay princes rejected with 
scorn, to contain the blessing. Year by year its at- 
tendance has increased until over four thousand stu- 
dents are enrolled in various departments. These de- 
partments have been strengthened and coordinated 
and the whole institution stirred to immediate service 
of the state. Through surveys and extension-courses, 
through efficient agricultural experimentation, and 
through the gift each year of five hundred trained men 
and women, the University has put its compelling 
hand on every part of the northwest and organized the 
forces of progress. To every phase of life in Minne- 
apolis it has contributed expert opinion and given its 
guidance to all movements tending to make the city 
good as well as great. 

The statesmanship of Ex-Governor John Lind and 
his associates of the Board of Regents has provided 
for the future of the University. These gentlemen 
have made invaluable additions to equipment and fac- 
ulty. They have provided room for expansion, and as 
a result the institution within the past two years, push- 
ing aside the worn-out dwellings of old "Cheever- 
town," has advanced its campus so that it now touches 



158 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

the river on the south as well as on the west. On 
this campus are fine new buildings, among them the 
Institute of Anatomy, the best of its kind in the world. 
Finally, in choosing as a successor of President 
Northrop, who, after more than a quarter of a century's 
unceasing toil, resigned in 1911, Dr. George E. Vin- 
cent of the University of Chicago, the Regents have 
given the University the trained and broad director 
needed to carry out their plans. 

Practical Courses in the Public Schools. The public 
schools have continued their march under the general- 
ship of Dr. Chas. M. Jordan, who succeeded Dr. Brad- 
ley in 1891. That nearly 50,000 pupils are now en- 
rolled in various grades, and that nearly 1,000 of these 
graduate from five high schools every year — a larger 
number in proportion to the total enrollment than in 
almost any city in the United States — is evidence of 
the support that Minneapolis people give their public 
school system. The courses of study have been pro- 
gressively revised, especially in the direction of voca- 
tional training. Sewing, cooking, sloyd and manual 
art are taught to every pupil in the grades ; and in the 
high schools domestic art and science, manual and 
commercial training are offered to those who desire 
to elect them. At the same time students preparing 
for college have ample opportunity to make their 
equipment complete so that the high school certificate 
will admit them without question. Evening schools 
have broadened their work to include drafting, and 
commercial subjects. The theory that a Minnesota 
summer is too hot for study is being dispelled by the 
excellent work done by 1,200 vacation school children, 
many of whom finish the work of an entire term in 
this short season. In addition to these activities 
kindergartens have been opened in a great many of the 



A GOOD CITY 159 

buildings. Under the direction of a thoroughly trained 
director and assistants, gymnasium training is being 
given to thousands of these children and effective su- 
pervision to all athletics. Weak children are being es- 
pecially cared for — some in open air rooms. 

Broader Use of School Buildings. One of the most 
interesting movements in recent years is that toward 
using buildings and equipment for the pleasure as 
well as for the instruction of the people, old and 
young. This social center idea is still in the experi- 
mental stage but already suggests a fine opportunity 
for service to the city at large. The idea will be given 
an impetus by the new Central High School building, 
"the last word in school architecture," and one of the 
best buildings for its purpose in the United States. It 
is so arranged that single parts of it can be lighted and 
heated. Thus a small group can hear a lecture, play 
a game or hold a party at little expense to the city. 

So the city, through its schools, is trying to min- 
ister to the whole child, body and mind and soul, 
striving to send out into the world useful rather than 
ornamental graduates. 

Other Educational Advantages. Side by side with 
the public schools several well-attended private schools 
have made themselves felt in the past twenty years, 
and have prepared several hundred students for the 
eastern colleges. The Catholics support a high school 
for boys, two academies for girls and seven grade 
schools, in all of which are enrolled about 4,000 pupils. 
The four commercial schools of 1895 have multiplied to 
eight, including a special office school. The old Minne- 
apolis Academy, once a preparatory school, has become 
a college, managed by the Lutherans, who also conduct 
an academy for boys. Moreover Augsberg Semin- 
ary, the first institution of collegiate rank to be started 



160 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

in the city, has made its foundation still more solid, 
and applied itself with great energy to the education 
of Swedish young men. A Lutheran Academy is being 
constructed. The interest in manual art is well repre- 
sented in the Handicraft Guild which supports a school 
of "Design, Handicraft and Normal Art." These edu- 
cational institutions together with the public schools 
and the University are continually drawing people to 
Minneapolis from all parts of the country. One 
teacher reports that 38 pupils enrolled in his room 
came from 19 states and territories. 

A City "Built to Music." The prominence that 
Minneapolis has attained for its interest in music is 
due in great measure to its Symphony Orchestra, 
which has been judged by eastern critics as of equal 
rank with their own orchestras. This organization is 
an outgrowth of the "Filharmonix," a society formed 
by a group of young men in 1890, which was re- 
christened the "Philharmonic Club" in 1894 and in- 
cluded both male and female voices. As the most 
prominent choral society in the northwest the or- 
ganization regularly produced classic oratorios in the 
next years under the leadership of Emil Oberhoffer, 
especially the "Messiah," which has been given on 
every Christmas Day since 1899. 

In 1903, public-spirited citizens desiring to give the 
Philharmonic Club its proper accompaniment, sub- 
scribed a guarantee fund to support an orchestra. 
This fund has been increased from time to time until 
$65,000 for each of five years is pledged to the sup- 
port of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, which, 
under the direction of Mr. Oberhoffer, has grown to . 
require the full time of eighty-five musicians, and be- 
sides its local concerts, gives tw r o hundred and fifty 
concerts in twenty states and in Canada. 



A GOOD CITY 161 

Among its great services have been its popular 
Sunday entertainments and its children's concerts. 
The great success of the children's concerts suggested 
to the Apollo Club, a male chorus, the idea of present- 
ing to children the best vocal music. With such an 
opportunity to hear the best, and such an opportunity 
to learn the best, these children will become the city 
of which indeed the saying will be true that it was 
"built to music." 

The cause of music has been served by other asso- 
ciations of artists too numerous to mention, among 
them The Thursday Musicale, a club of a thousand 
women, and the Scandinavian singing societies, whose 
sangerfests are popular, by reason of their culture of 
feeling as well as culture of art. 

With the general education thus offered especial 
opportunities for musical training are afforded. On 
any afternoon hundreds of boys and girls may be seen 
with instrument and music roll on their way to the 
several schools of music, or to the studios of many 
teachers trained in the best schools of Europe. Nine 
bands and orchestras and seven musical societies are 
listed in Hudson's Dictionary of Minneapolis, and 427 
musicians in their own directory. 

A Great Interest in Art. It is harder to speak of 
the development of art. But the public schools have 
done more than anybody can know, except those who 
carefully follow their work, to encourage an apprecia- 
tion of proportion,of perspective and of color. Every 
child before he leaves the grades knows the elements 
of picture-making and can further develop his ability 
in designing while in the high school. The Minne- 
apolis School of Fine Arts has kept the best ideals 
before it ever since its establishment, and has been 
able to train hundreds of students in the more in- 



A GOOD CITY 163 

tricate details of technique and to the appreciation of 
the best in art. The exhibits of school work as well 
as of the modern masters, aim to attract the general 
public to this same appreciation. Parallel to the in- 
fluence of the Symphony Orchestra is that of the 
Walker Gallery, one of the most magnificent collec- 
tions of pictures in America open to the public at the 
expense of walking in to see them. 

The increasing interest in art is revealed nowhere 
more than in the earnest attempt to erect noble build- 
ings for all purposes, and to decorate them in a fitting 
manner. In the last ten years especially, Minneapolis 
has added to her business blocks a group of hotel, 
club and office buildings and warehouses that are 
pleasing to look upon; and thousands of residences 
that have only to be compared with their neighbors 
built in the boom period to prove the truth of our 
statement. 

The New Art Museum. The art capital of the 
Northwest undoubtedly will be the new structure. 
shown on the opposite page, which the Society of Fine 
Arts, after a campaign of a year, was able to guarantee 
to the city. It is being constructed, the corner stone 
having just been laid, on the grounds of Dorilius Mor- 
rison, once so prominent in the making of Minneapolis. 
These were presented to the society by his son, Clinton 
15. Morrison. With this gift <^ ^250,000 as a basis, 
cash subscriptions to the total of half a million dollars 
were solicited, making possible the erection of a build- 
ing ?75 feet long by 500 wide, to shelter the paintings 
and sculptures fit to find a home within it. The Park 
Hoard has purchased the adjoining estate of Fair Oaks, 
the home of ex-Senator Washburn, so that one of the 
most imposing buildings in all of the United States 



164 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

shall be assured of an approach and setting worthy 
of it. 

The Public Library a Faithful Servant. The li- 
brary facilities have had to keep pace with the edu- 
cational development of the city. Three more build- 
ings have been erected since 1890 — one on the north 
side, one on the east side, provided for by Ex-Governor 
Pillsbury and named after him, and one near the 
West High School named after Mr. Thos. B. Walker, 
the donor of the lot upon which it stands. The prox- 
imity of each of these buildings to a high school is of 
inestimable benefit. 

There will be many more such buildings. Already 
four are provided for by a gift of $125,000 recently 
received from Andrew Carnegie. The Library Board 
reports 13 branches and 20 delivery stations in oper- 
ation. These, together with the main library, circu- 
lated in 1912 nearly a million and a half books, or 
a daily average of over four thousands. Indeed, of the 
cities of the United States, Minneapolis stands first in 
per capita circulation and tenth in the whole number 
of books issued. 

The library contains 250,000 volumes, so that each 
book is used four times during the year. With this 
circulation we must note the lending of sheet music 
and pictures for use by schools and clubs. Thus the 
library reveals the larger spirit of serviceableness that 
characterizes this age. It stimulates the imagination 
of the young through its story-telling session; it en- 
courages the love of outdoor life by listing books on 
birds, flowers and gardening; it serves the city gov- 
ernment through its municipal research bureau ; it aids 
various clubs in their study by preparing bibliograph- 
ies ; it informs the general public by its posters on cur- 
rent events — in short, wherever an end is to be Grained, 



A GOOD CITY 165 

educational, artistic, political, religious, social — there 
the Minneapolis library is on hand to give its services. 
The New Religion. Since 1893 the church has ex- 
panded with the city, despite the fact that church at- 
tendence is not so rigidly regular as it used to be, 
and that business men no longer stop work to hold 
prayer meetings. Consistent with its record in the 
early days of the city, the church has been a pioneer 
following close upon the heels of the real estate pro- 
moter, until now the directory informs us that 22 
Baptist, 22 Catholic, 25 Congregational, 5 Christian 
Scientist, 16 Episcopalian, 9 Hebrew, 52 Lutheran, 
30 Methodist, 22 Presbyterian, 6 Swedish Mission and 
14 miscellaneous churches minister unto the various 
parts of the city. The progress of the church in late 
years has been due to the fact that this ministry has 
concerned itself with physical and mental aspects of 
life as well as with what was formerly called the spir- 
itual. The church has caught the larger spirit of 
helpfulness and is trying to apply religion in a most 
intimate manner to the daily needs of the people, 
whether they be communicants or no. The Catholics 
support a large orphan asylum and a home for the 
aged, the Jews their Associated Charities, the Luther- 
ans, Methodists and Episcopalians hospitals, the last 
also an orphanage. Some form of institutional work 
is conducted by nearly every church organization in 
the city. Gymnasiums, clubs adapted to the various 
ages of their youth, lecture courses, concerts, kinder- 
gartens, relief societies, evening classes — these are 
among the many operations of the church carried on 
either in its buildings or in settlement houses. Drum- 
mond Hall, Pillsbury, Unit}' and Wells Memorial 
Houses, supported by Congregationalists, Unitarians 
and Episcopalians, respectively, but virtually inde- 



166 



THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 



pendent of denominational control, are all centers of 
social and civic life to those parts of the city which 
they serve. Pillsbury, by nurturing the Sixth Ward 
Equality Club, has the distinction of changing its ward 




ST. MARKS PRO-CATHEDRAL 



from being the least to being in some ways the most 
progressive of any in the city. 

With this institutional trend the ardor for church 
architecture seeminsrlv has grown more intense. 



A GOOD CITY 167 

Within the past decade every Protestant denomination 
has erected magnificent buildings, chief among which 
are the Plymouth Congregational, the St. Mark's 
(Episcopal), Procathedral, Westminster Presbyterian. 
The new Hennepin Avenue Methodist church at the 
top of Lowry Hill will match these. The most monu- 
mental of all the new churches is the Catholic Pro- 
Cathedral now nearing completion. The sight of these 
two pro-cathedrals, from a point beyond the trees and 
lake of Loring Park must forever banish from the 
mind of anyone the idea that a western city is inter- 
ested only in its bigness and commercial strength. 

The churches by their insistence on good music have 
also greatly contributed to the fame of Minneapolis as 
a musical center. 

Men's Clubs. One phase, of church institutional 
work that deserves especial mention is the formation 
of men's clubs for the discussion of the great ques- 
tions of the day, particularly those relating to city 
life and government. Five thousand men are thus 
represented in the Federation of Men's Clubs, which, 
through central committees, aims to strengthen this 
interest. One of these committees devoted to the 
stud_\- of social service has been able to bring the need 
of certain reform-, notably those concerning the regu- 
lation of dance halls, saloons and public morals before 
the council in such a manner as to obtain for the city 
a decided improvement. Ibis committee, by its own 
efforts and by co-operation with other forces, aims 
to keep these rive thousand men constantly on the 
alert to make a better city. The ministers of all de- 
nominations are federated, too, into a compact body 
ready to throw its whole force into any movement 
promising impr< ivement. 



168 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

Women's Clubs. With these church forces must 
be included various women's clubs, which, although 
not connected with the churches, are aiming at essen- 
tially the same ends. They have done much to im- 
prove the condition of women in factories and stores 
and to encourage all women to take an active interest 
in their own betterment. The Women's Christian 
Association, the Young Women's Christian Associa- 
tion and the newly formed Women's Welfare League 
are active also in bringing the working women of the 
city into actual contact with the best influences — good 
boarding houses, good recreation and good company. 
The last named organization includes Catholics and 
Jews in its number and thus believes that its work 
will be made much broader. The total force of women 
engaged in some form of labor to make a better city 
is considerably over 10,000. 

Other Progressive Clubs. In addition to these 
larger organizations several smaller groups have done 
a great deal to lead the city into the light of true 
progress. The Social Service, Six O'Clock and Satur- 
day Lunch Clubs are studying the devices which 
various cities of the world use to achieve their ends ; 
and are trying to call the attention of Minneapolis to 
those that have proved successful. Recently the Office 
Men's club has shown a like zeal. The Grade Teach- 
ers' Association, the Teachers' Club and the School- 
masters' Club are interested in the same things, as 
well as in their distinct field. The Joint Improvement 
Association, composed of delegates from the Improve- 
ment Leagues of the city, has had a great deal to do 
with city government, as well as with the details of 
local betterment. The Trades and Labor Assembly, 
representing nearly every manual trade in the city, 
exerts a great influence to improve working and liv- 



A GOOD CITY 169 

ing conditions of the great mass of Minneapolis citi- 
zens. These organizations, while they by no means 
include all of the agencies laboring to make Minne- 
apolis as good a place to live in as it is to do business 
in, are outside the great business leagues, the chief 
support of the reform movement in the city. 

Protective Organizations. This spirit is fostered 
by other organizations of which too little is known. 
The Young Men's Christian Association has made an 
insistent appeal to the whole man through its gym- 
nasium and swimming pool, its library and study 
courses and lectures, its social parties and its Bible 
study classes. Besides this it has become a natural 
center for interdenominational movements such as 
the Men's Forward Religious Movement, and uses its 
organization to bring the churches together. Like 
the library, this society has found it necessary to 
begin the establishment of branches which will be 
accessible to many who cannot make use of the 
Central building. The first venture of this kind was 
made in 1912 when a building was equipped in the 
southeastern part of the city near the University. The 
Humane Society, especially in the past few years, 
has become more interested in children than in ani- 
mals, and has been able to thwart the attempt of cruel 
men and women to cheat children of their birthright. 
The society has been particularly effective in enforc- 
ing dance hall ordinances in favor of young girls. 
The Juvenile Protective League, in co-operation with 
the Juvenile Court, has worked to the same end. A 
boys' club, wherein the street workers are able to 
find both recreation and instruction, and a farm home 
near Minnetonka which gives the tempted boy a 
chance to recover his sense of right, are among the 
achievements of this societv. How different is the 



170 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

human interest exhibited by such a system of dealing 
with erring children than that employed in the not 
very remote past? In one of the newspapers of the 
early nineties is a calm account of a young delinquent 
girl brought into court, scolded by the judge until he 
was tired, then locked up to remain thirty days the 
companion of the vicious. The reporter of the incident 
was moved only by the girl's indifference to the scold- 
ing, not by her probable fate. 

These are not all. The Associated Charities, through 
a scientific, and at the same time a sympathetic, study 
of poverty and distress, has been invaluable to the 
city in attempting to make the lives of its toilers hap- 
pier. The Union City Mission, popularly known as 
"The Life Saving Station," from the sign on its win- 
dows, in operation since 1895, and since 1902 conduct- 
ing the St. Tames Hotel on both a commercial and 
benevolent basis, has combined evangelistic services 
with its relief work. In the same manner the local 
posts of the Salvation Army and Volunteers of 
America have contributed a great service to the "float- 
ing population" which throngs the city, especially dur- 
ing the winter months. The Society for the Friendless 
aims to care for those discharged from prison or work- 
house until they got employment. Two homes shelter 
aged women. These organized movements are aided 
by the work of the Sunshine Society and the various 
associations who do not support institutions expressly 
for the purpose. The sum expended in a single year in 
thus serving the unfortunate is so great that many 
citizens have come to believe in the advantage of 
federation over individual effort ; and better even than 
that, of prevention over cure. 

The Lunch Meeting. An institution that has grown 
up in the last few years is the lunch meeting. At noon 



A GOOD CITY 171 

people who otherwise could not meet, gather in small 
groups in the several tea rooms and eating places of 
the city to discuss plans for its betterment educa- 
tionally, socially, politically, as well as commercially, 
while they eat. In this way clubs, Sunday school 
classes, and committees of all kinds daily are con- 
tributing to the mind and soul of the city that is to be. 

Business Associations. These organizations are 
aided in their work by the great business associations 
— the Commercial Club and its smaller brothers in 
various parts of the city — and the recently organized 
Civic and Commerce Association, which aims, by in- 
cluding as many firms and individuals as possible in 
its organization, to carry the force required to trans- 
form the entire city into a great working concern, li 
each part of this concern co-ordinates with every 
other part, the whole of it will move forward to make 
the city an ideal place in which to work, whether in 
bank or factory, and in which to live, whether in cot- 
tage or mansion. 

One of the best services which the Civic and Com- 
merce Association will render to the city will be its 
labor to improve housing conditions. We have found 
that Minneapolis has no slum district. Nevertheless 
the advance of factory and store into what were once 
residence sections, has placed in the hands of specu- 
lators certain houses which they feel it will not be 
profitable to keep in repair, and which the}- intend to 
rent until business demands make it unnecessary. Such 
houses are, of course, unfit habitations for the people 
who are to make the city "built to music." Mr. 
Homer Borst, for the association, has completed a 
survey of the city ; and we can expect that the publi- 
cation of this survey will bring the force required to 



172 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

improve housing conditions wherever betterment is 
needed. 

Improved Government. Such earnest efforts on the 
part of school, library, musician, church, social ser- 
vice clubs and business associations has a wonderful 
effect on government. Since the "Shame of Minne- 
apolis," revealed in the grand jury report on the last 
Ames administration ten years ago, was printed 
abroad, the trend has been distinctly upward until the 
rule and not the exception is that the alderman tries 
to serve and not to fleece his fellows, the public 
officials try to save and not steal public money. The 
council chamber and committee room have been clear 
of scandal now for years. Rather, they have been 
the scenes of serious discussions on the part of citi- 
zens helping the councilmen to draft important ordi- 
nances. From this have come better gas and electric 
agreements, better street car regulation, better health 
regulations, better working arrangements on city con- 
tracts, better administration of the waterworks and a 
better feeling- on the part of the citizen toward an 
alderman — a desire to help instead of to malign him. 
The Voters' League, by keeping the public informed 
as to the character of the men running for office, by 
inducing good men to file, and by generally casting its 
influence on the side of good government, has exerted 
a powerful influence on city and county government. 
All of this points Minneapolis to the true greatness 
so little dreamed of in the days of the boom, and makes 
every citizen proud of her accomplishment at the same 
time that he calls for more improvement. No one 
should continue to live in Minneapolis, no one should 
move to Minneapolis, who is not at once a fighter for 
improvement and an optimist for getting it. 




P)WER, BEAUTY, MUSIC. 
THUS MINNEHAHA; THUS MINNE (h) APOLIS 



174 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

A City Never Built. Such being the feeling of the 
great mass of her citizens, Minneapolis can have but 
one life from now on. Her states, for she is virtually 
the capital of several, are growing in wealth and power 
so fast that the figures given at the beginning of Chap- 
ter Seven will soon be far too small. The northern 
portion of Minnesota itself, a great, almost trackless 
wilderness, will support a million people within very 
few years. The application of modern methods to 
farming will double the yields and make possible and 
necessary the division of the great tracts now held by 
pioneers. This immense production of raw material 
is at her very doors, to be made by the factories of 
Minneapolis into food and clothing, machinery, fur- 
niture and a hundred other articles necessary to life. 
Then, with this great crowd to sell back the product 
to, how can the city escape its destiny? 

What Taxes Do. To make such a city great and to 
keep it good, it is necessary to collect from its citizens 
sums of money called taxes. Sometimes people growl 
about paying these sums, although they are willing to 
partake of the privileges which are made possible by 
taxation. In Minneapolis the house-owner pays about 
three cents on a dollar's worth of property. If his 
house is rated at $2,000, he pays $60. What does he 
get for it? 

(1) He g-ets the protection of the police for him- 
self and family day and night. 

(2) He gets the protection of the fire department. 
day and night. 

(3) He has a health department to keep him and 
his family from contagious disease. 

(4) He has a school in which to make his children 
good men and women. 



A GOOD CITY 175 

(5) He has a library willing to give him and his 
family almost any advantage to read. 

(6) He has streets well guarded, and by night well 
lighted. 

(7) He has public officials to protect him and his 
property. 

(8) He has a scavenger who calls regularly to 
carry away the refuse of his house. 

(9) He has a court to look after his welfare and 
to protect his property. 

(10) He has the advantage of fine public works, 
public buildings, and public parks. 

Is not all of this a good deal for $60? 

A City Built Forever. Minneapolis is persuading 
all of her citizens, rich as well as poor, to see that it 
is. She is getting them to take broad views, and, as 
an editor recently said, to "think in thousands, not in 
tens." 

With such thinking the schools will grow, especially 
in the direction of industrial training, the churches 
and other forces of culture will apply themselves more 
particularly to the service of the city. The ideals, 
now seemingly but dreams, will be realized, and new 
ideals put before the coming generation. Minneapo- 
lis will be an active city, a beautiful city, a home city, 
a well-governed city, a city with a minimum of dis- 
tress and a maximum of happiness. If the program 
now set before her by progressive citizens is followed 
by their successors, she will indeed be "a city built 
to music and therefore never built, and therefore built v 
forever." 



SOME IMPORTANT DATES. 

CHAPTER I. 

1683 — Father Louis Hennepin names the falls St. An- 
thony. 

1807 — Lieutenant Zebulon Pike obtains from the In- 
dians the site of Minneapolis. 

1820 — Colonel Leavenworth, builds the fort, afterwards 
named, in honor of his successor, Snelling. 

1822- — The United States begins the manufacture of 
lumber and flour. 

1834 — The Ponds locate at Lake Calhoun. 

1836 — Joseph Nicollet explores Minnesota. 

CHAPTER II. 

1847 — Franklin Steele builds the first commercial lum- 
ber mill. 

1848— St. Anthony is platted. 

1850 — The first steamer reaches St. Anthony. 

1851 — R. C. Rogers opens the first public grist mill. 

1851 — Principal Merrill opens the Preparatory De- 
partment of the University. 

1855 — The suspension bridge is opened. 

1855 — St. Anthony becomes a city. 

CHAPTER III. 

1850 — Colonel Stevens builds the first house on the 

west side. 
1851 — Hennepin county is organized. 
1852 — Charles Hoag names the west side settlement. 

Minneapolis. 



SOME IMPORTANT DATES 177 

1854 — The Hennepin County Agricultural Society 
holds its first fair. 

1855 — The United States gives clear titles to claim- 
holders, and the plat of Minneapolis is re- 
corded. 

185(5 — Brown's Falls, through the publication of Hia- 
watha, become known as Minnehaha Falls. 

1858 — The flour mills make their first shipment. 

1859 — The Minneapolis Athanaeum is organized. 

CHAPTER IV. 

1861 — The First Regiment leaves for the front. 

1862 — The first train arrives at St. Anthony. 

1867 — Minneapolis becomes a city. 

1868 — The first railroad crosses from St. Anthony to 
Minneapolis. 

1869 — The university is organized on a permanent 
basis and Wm. W. Folwell becomes presi- 
dent. 

1872 — St. Anthony and Minneapolis unite. 

CHAPTERS V AND VI. 

1872 — O. V. Touseley organizes the Minneapolis 
school system. 

1873 — The Minnesota Academy of Science is organ- 
ized. 

1874 — The flour mills install the middlings purifier. 

1875 — Minneapolis sees its first street car. 

1878 — An explosion destroys seven mills. The roller 
process takes the place of buhr stones. 

1878 — The schools of the city are united under one 
board. 

1883 — Minneapolis honors Henry Villard for the com- 
pletion of the Northern Pacific Railroad. 



178 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

1883 — The Patrol Limits are instituted. 

188-1 — Dr. Cyrus Northrop becomes president of the 
University. 

1885 — The Library Board is organized and erects the 
main building. 

1886 — The Minneapolis Exposition opens. 

1887 — Minneapolis is connected with the Canadian- 
Pacific by the "Soo Line." 

1889 — The first electric car is operated on Fourth Ave- 
nue. 

1890 — The census returns are especially interesting. 

1891 — Minneapolis holds a great harvest festival. 

1891 — Northeast Minneapolis is visited by a disastrous 
fire. 

1892 — Dr. Chas. M. Jordan is elected superintendent 
of schools. 

1892 — The Republican National Convention nominates 
Benjamin Harrison for the presidency in the 
lumber and flour capital of the world. 

1899 — The Thirteenth Regiment of Minnesota Volun- 
teers returns from the Philippines. 

1903 — The Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra is or- 
ganized. 

1906 — The Grand Army of the Republic meets in 
Minneapolis. 

19C8 — The Catholics lay the cornerstone of their Pro- 
Cathedral with imposing ceremonies. 

1911 — Dr. George E. Vincent becomes president of 
the University. 

1911 — Minneapolis celebrates the "Linking of the 
Lakes" with appropriate ceremonies and pa- 
rades. 

1911__The Civic and Commerce Association is organ- 
ized. 
1913— The cornerstone of the Minneapolis Art Mu- 
seum is laid. 



APPENDIX 

THE GOVERNMENT OF MINNEAPOLIS 

The city of Minneapolis is governed under the fed- 
eral plan modeled after the United States government. 
A mayor, who represents the city on occasions, acts 
by virtue of his office on various boards, and controls 
the police, is the executive, and, like the president, has 
the power of veto. Since the comptroller and treas- 
urer are elected, like the mayor they are responsible 
to the people ; and not, as is the cabinet to the presi- 
dent, subject to the mayor. All three of these officials 
are chosen for a two-year term. 

The legislative branch is the council, consisting 
however of only one house. It is composed of two 
aldermen, not three as it was at first, from each of thir- 
teen wards, to serve two years. Like Congress this 
council discusses and orders what it deems best for 
the city. It (1) issues bonds, (2) appropriates money, 
(3) directs all public work, (4) licenses and restricts 
the liquor traffic, and (5) regulates all relationships 
between citizens that are not controlled by national 
or state law. By a two-thirds vote it may pass a 
measure over the mayor's veto. 

In order to do its work effectively the council ap- 
points committees on health, sewers, streets, bridges, 
gas, fire department, ways and means, and on such 
special subjects as arise from time to time. Through 
these committees it assists its expert employes — the 
engineer, who cares for the streets and manages the 
water department ; the health officer, who superin- 
tends the hospital for consumptives, sees to garbage 



180 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

disposal and generally watches over the physical well 
being of the city, the chief of the fire department, 
and minor officers. The council also employs an at- 
torney to advise it in making ordinances, and a clerk, 
or secretary to keep a record of all the city business. 
Several departments of city life are independent of 
the council. These are managed by boards elected 
directly by the people. 

(1) The Library Board, composed of six members 
in addition to the mayor, president of the University, 
and the president of the school board, elected by twos, 
has full control of the public libraries, reading rooms, 
and art galleries. 

(2) The School Board consists of seven members 
elected for six-year terms. It employs the superin- 
tendent of schools, his assistants and all of the teach- 
ers, buys equipment, builds school houses, and man- 
ages the school system through committees on finance, 
buildings and supplies and education. 

(3) The Park Board of seven members may con- 
demn land for public parks, assess costs on property 
owners, control streets, if the council consents, and 
issue bonds for park purposes. 

These are the elected boards. There is also a 
Health Board, composed of the committee on health, 
the mayor, and the health officer, and a Board of 
Correction and Charities to look after the poor, the 
city hospital and the work house, numbering among 
its members, besides the superintendent of the poor 
and the mayor, citizens appointed by the mayor. 

All board members whether elected or appointed, 
serve without pay except as they draw salary in other 
offices. 

The judicial is represented by the Municipal Court 
which tries persons charged with violating city ordi- 



APPENDIX 181 

nances, and punishes the guilty by fine, or imprison- 
ment in the workhouse. It also tries civil cases in 
which the sums involved do not exceed $500. 

A Proposed Change in Government. 

This system of government has long been criticised 
because it does not apply to city conditions. Many 
have thought that there is no good reason for divid- 
ing a city into wards and dividing the strength that 
should v go to improving the whole city, which they 
conceive as a business institution rather than a small 
nation. Many, too, have disliked the board govern- 
ment ; and perhaps more have felt that the present ar- 
rangement divides authority; for instance, by giving 
the control of one hospital to the city physician, and 
of another to the Board of Correction and Charities. 

Hence these objections, added to the desire for a 
charter that will give Minneapolis "home rule," or 
the right to regulate her expenditures without apply- 
ing to the legislature, have resulted in the appoint- 
ment of several charter commissions, none of which 
has succeeded in bringing before the people a charter 
which they have preferred to the present one. At this 
writing, however, there is before the city for its ap- 
proval,, the commission plan of government. 

Under the proposed plan seven men will form a 
council, one to be mayor, and each to be possessed 
of full power over a department for the conduct 
of which he will be held responsible. The mayor, for 
instance, will be at the head of the department of 
public safety, including both police and fire depart- 
ments, the health officer in full charge of the depart- 
men of health, the city engineer over the department 
of public works, the treasurer in charge of finance,, a 
councilman controlling corrections and charities, one, 



182 THE STORY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

parks and grounds, and one, public utilities. Each of 
the heads is supposed to employ experts so that the 
work of his department will be economically and 
efficiently done. By this plan its friends hope that 
the waste and delay .involved in divided duties, as 
well as the troubles due to ward politics, will be elim- 
inated, and that the city will be free to expand in 
ways now closed to her. 

This proposed change in government will also free 
the city from the state legislature, so that when a 
bond issue or something else desired by the city is 
contemplated, it will not be necessary to plead for per- 
mission to undertake it. In other words, Minneapolis 
will get the much needed "home rule" privilege. 

Two Good Commissions. Whether Minneapolis 
have a federal charter or a commission form of gov- 
ernment, whether she be ruled by the legislature or 
by her own council, she will expect much improve- 
ment from the labors of two boards recently organ- 
ized. One is the Morals Commission, a body of seven 
citizens appointed by the mayor to investigate into the 
moral conditions of the city and make reports from 
time to time to the council ; and the other is the Civil 
Service Commission, legalized by act of the last legis- 
lature. This commission consists of three citizens and 
a paid secretary. It will examine candidates for vari- 
ous city positions and choose for these positions those 
who show themselves most fit. 



INDEX 



Academy of Music, 74. 
Academy of Natural Science, 119. 
Agriculture, 9, 46, 58, 88. 
Ames, Alonzo A., 107, 124. 
Apollo Club, 161. 
Art Museum, 161. 
Vtwater's History, 45 '• 
Atwater, Isaac, 25, 39, 47, 91. 
Augsberg Seminary, 83. 
Hanking, 72, 96, 145. 
Bassett's Creek, 6. 
Bassett, Joel, 47, 77. 
Hoard of Trade, 70, 91. 
Boundaries, 31, 41, 48, 56, 79, 97. 
Bowman, Ceorge, 25, 52. 
Brackett. George, 91, 120. 
Bradley, Dr. John, 116, 158. 
Bridge Street, 48. 
Bridge Square, 48, 56, 66. 
Brown, Joseph, 11. 
Brown's Falls, 55, 65. 
Buildings, 107, 163. 
Calhoun District, 17. 
Calhoun. I ake, 1, 9, 11, 55, 24, 152. 
Carver, Jonathan, 3. 
Chalybeate Springs, 41. 
Chamber of Commerce, 142. 
Cheever, William, 23, 41. 
Cheevertown, 31. 
Chronicle, 72. 
Churches, 25, 60, 74, 163. 
Chute, Richard, 82, 91. 
Citizen, The, 120. 
City, Organization, 79. 
City, Life of, 37, 68, 80. 
Civic and Commerce Association, 171 
Civic Commission, 152. 
Civil Service, Appendix. 
Cleveland, Prof. II. W., 111. 
Cloudman, 13. 
Clubs- 
Commercial, 171. 
Lunch, 170. 
Men's, 167. 
Musical, 160. 
Social, 39. 
Women's, 168. 



Commission form of Government, 
Appendix. 

Country, Description of, 3, 6, 17, 35, 41, 
57. 

Court House, 51. 

Dual City, 62, 83. 

Duluth, 3. 

Eatonville, 11. 

Elliott, Doctor. 47. 

Exposition, 109. 

First Regiment, 65. 

Fort Snelling, 7, 66. 

Fort Snelling Reservation, 5, 22, 53. 

Flour, Manufacture of, 10, 27, 59, 86, 

92, 135. 
Fohvell, Dr. Wm. W., 83, 117, 119. 
Folwell's History, 1, 13, 76. 
Ciillillan, John B., 38, 61. 
Oodfrey, Ard, 24, 47. 
Government of Minneapolis, 56, 123, 174, 

Appendix. 
Government of St. Anthony, 31, 41, 84. 
Crand Opera House, 126. 
< Grasshoppers, 85. 
Grossileurs, 1. 

Growth of City, 94, 115. 

Growth of Minnesota, 58, 70, 85, 88, 130. 

Harriet, Lake, 1, 9, 12, 55, 124. 

I larvtst Festival, 127. 

Helen Street, 49. 

Hennepin Avenue, 48, 54. 

Hennepin County, 41, 46, 51. 

Hennepin, Father Louis, 2, 125. 

Henenpin Island, 28, 35, 70. 

Iloag, Charles, 39, 47, 52. 

Immigration, 69. 

Improvements, 62, 72, 81, 90, 103, 107, 
149, 150. 

Indians, 2, 11, 67. 

Industries, 71, 94, 98, 133, 137. 

Johnson's Lake, 112. 

Jordan, Dr. Charles M., 101, 158. 

King, William, 98. 99, 127. 

La Salle, 12. 

Life in St. Anthony, 37. 

Fife in Minneapolis, 68, 80, 124. 

Fittle Crow, 6, 68. 



INDEX 



184 



Lind, John, 156. 

Long, Major, 6. 

Loring, Charles, 91, 111. 

Lowry, Thomas, 99, 102. 

Lumber, Manufacture of, 9, 27, 92, 132, 

134. 
McCrory, William, 100. 
McGolrick, Father, 119, 125. 
Machinery, Manufacture of, 71, 135. 
Main Street, 31, 74. 
Marshall, William, 23, 25, 48. 
Martin, Richard, 120. 
Middlings purifier, 86. 
Mill explosion, 122. 
Miller, Joaquin, 109, 127. 
Minneapolis Athenaeum, 50, 62. 
Minneapolis, Name of, 52. 
Minneapolis, Plat of, 48. 
Minnehaha Falls, 55, 65, 76. 
Minnesota, Growth of, 58, 70, 85, 88. 
Minnetonka, 10, 17, 124. 
Mississippi, 3, 6. 

Morrison, Dorilius, 70, 77, 165. 

Murphy, Edward, 47, 77, 112. 
Music, 160, 167. 

Nicollet Avenue, 54, 91. 

Nicollet House, 55, 74, 76. 

Nicollet Island, 39, 66. 

Nicollet, Joseph, 19. 

Nimmocks, C. A., 111. 

Northern Pacific, 58, 78, 85, 126. 

Northrop, Dr. Cyrus, 117, 158. 

O'Brien, Frank G., 37, 39. 

Panic of '57, 61. 

Panic of '73, 86. 

Panic of '93, 129. 

Parades, 126, 152. 

Park System, 111, 150. 

Patrol Limits, 121. 

Pence Opera House, 74. 

Pettit, Curtis H., 49, 59. 

Pig's Eye, 22, 115. 

Pike, Zebulon, 6. 

Pillsbury, John, 65, 83, 117. 

Pond, Gideon, 12, 46. 

Pond, Samuel, 12. 

Power, development of, 70, 140. 

Protective Organizations, 169. 

Public Library, 25, 50, 62, 118, 1.64. 

Public Utilities, 82, 96, 113, 149. 

Public Morals Commission, Appendix. 

Radisson. 1. 



Railroad, Extension of, 76, 85, 91, 132. 
Ramsey, Governor, 65, 125. 
Real Estate, 72, 96, 143. 
Republican National Convention, 92. 
Retail Trade, 72, 96, 143. 
St. Anthony Claim Protective Associa- 
tion, 46, 115. 

St. Anthony Express, 25. 
St. Anthony Falls, 3, 5, 6, 70, 140. 
St. Anthony Ferry, 28. 
St. Anthony, Plan of, 31. 
St. Paul, 2, 22, 47, 114. 
Scandinavian Churches, 165. 
Scandinavian Immigration, 69. 
Scandinavian Music, 161. 
Schools, 19, 33, 37, 52, 60. 
School System, 42, 83, 116, 158, Ap- 
pendix. 

School of Fine Arts, 119, 161. 

Seccomb, Charles, 33, 58. 

Sibley, Henry, 19, 68. 

Social Service, 163, 165. 

Spencer, Doctor Kirby, 50, 118. 

Stage Routes, 30, 59. 

Steamers, 30, 36, 62. 

Steele, Franklin, 22, 25, 47, 48. 

Stevens, John H., 45, 98. 

Stevens, Reverend J. D., 19. 

Street Railways, 98, 103, 148. 

Suspension Bridge, 29, 80. 

Symphony Orchestra, 160. 

Taliaferro, Major, 14. 

Tapper, Captain John, 28, 45. 

Taxes, 170. 

Touseley, O. V., 83, 116. 

Tribune Fire, 122. 

Union of cities. 83. 

University, 25, 83, 117, 156. 

University Avenue, 111. 

Van Cleve, Charlotte, 8, 35. 

Villard Parade, 126. 

Vincent, Doctor George E., 158. 

Voters' League, 172. 

Walker Gallery, 163. 

Washburn Home, 120. 

Washburn, Wm. D.,.65, 77, 91, 125, 165. 

Washington Avenue, 48, 56, 74, 99, 126. 

Welles, H. T., 41, 49, 57. 

Wheat, 11, 57, 85, 131, 141, 142. 

Wholesale Trade, 72, 98, 143. 

Winchell, Professor, 118. 

Winslow House, 36, 71. 



